


a kissing book

by kouje



Series: blue spirit and his dreaded pirates [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (sane-ish azula), Alternative Universe - The Princess Bride, Hakoda (Avatar) is a Good Parent, M/M, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Sane Azula (Avatar), aka sokka as buttercup and zuko as westley, i can have a little good azula as a treat, i used lines from the book so liberally i had to google limitations of fair use, im a proud member of the happy ending gang, no kill only knock out by sword, sokka is one of the twenty most beautiful men in the world, technically sokka/ozai but only in theory., zuko is one of the top five hottest but that is not mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 35,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27342280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kouje/pseuds/kouje
Summary: This is a story of fencing, fighting, torture, poison, revenge, monsters, chases, escapes, lies, truths, passion, miracles, and above all, true love.-“Return to me.” Sokka said, furtively, furious, passionate.Zuko put all of the undying devotion he felt behind the words and said, “As you wish.”Zuko turned, and went, and did not come back.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: blue spirit and his dreaded pirates [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999375
Comments: 61
Kudos: 232





	1. the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys welcome to my channel today we're talking about shit we go ham over aka the princess bride
> 
> chapter 2 will be out on tuesday (11/03) and chapter 3 will be out thursday (11/05), and there will more than likely be some sort of bonus content after that because i love self-gratification and also this fic too much to stop myself. peep the end notes if you need help keeping their ages straight bc god knows i did
> 
> thanks for reading! hope you like it! xoxo!

Zuko used to be a prince. He supposed he still _was_ a prince, but he also supposed nothing would ever come of it. His days used to be spent under the gaze and rod of harsh tutors, being taught how to fight without mercy and with no acknowledgement that he was just a child who could barely lift a sword, isolated from other children and alone, unless his fiery little sister was allowed near him. Azula had his father’s favor and Zuko decidedly did _not,_ however, so those were rare occasions (though they were occasions held close to his heart, sometimes recalled with childlike homesickness during sleepless nights). Zuko used to be a prince who was sheltered and spoiled with luxury, even if it was dampened drastically by Crown Prince Ozai’s constant grimace and heavy hand.

Zuko used to be a prince. Zuko was now a proficient farmhand, yielding a scythe as he was taught to yield a sword, body strong from shoveling hay and hoeing fields. He had never shied away from hard work; a tenacious child turned into a resilient young man, he was not too proud to bow his head under the sun when, in another life, a crown might have been held high. Once a prince, now a peasant, banished from the castle and capital for daring to question his father about the cruelty of his military tactics in the presence of his father’s generals, cast out beyond the walls with a horrid burn on his face. Under normal circumstances, banishment would have been represented by a cut off ear, so that all who saw him would know his shame and treat him accordingly. That was not enough for Ozai - his failure of a son, the disappointing prince, must learn respect, and suffering was to be his teacher. He could not kill him outright, of course, but the likelihood of mortal infection was enough.

He had been thirteen; a child, still growing, still scared of the dark and closed closets and the tell-tale sound of his father’s steps coming towards his room after another day of Zuko’s _failure._ His only ally was his Uncle Iroh, and maybe Uncle Iroh would have stopped the whole thing had he even been in the country, maybe he could have kept Zuko from speaking out, from being burned, from being cast out of the only place he had ever known. As he had been escorted from the grounds to the edge of the woods, he had chanced a single glance back and saw his little sister wave from the window. She was scared of the dark, too. More than his own fear of death and of being alone, he was struck with fear for her - Azula would have no one to hide her weaknesses from their father, few though there were. He hoped his mother’s spirit would look over her instead of him.

Zuko survived. He had been lucky to be born, and he continued to be lucky to live. A gruff healer with just enough kindness behind his eyes had found him deep in the woods, exhausted and delirious and nearly fulfilling his father’s hopes of dying from infection. He had nursed him back to health, muttering complaints about their kingdom and Ozai’s rule as he did so - he knew who Zuko was, then. When he felt it would be traitorous to listen to his complaints in silence, he choked out, “I’m the prince,” hoping it would make the healer think about _who_ he was speaking treason to.

The healer gave him a sharp look, and taught him his first lesson outside the castle walls. “ _Were_ , my boy. You’re the prince no longer.”

Had Zuko been a lost little prince, still crowned and honorable, caught in some accident that left him in dire straits, the healer would have left him to die. But as it was, he turned him out only when he could walk on his own, shoved a book about foraging into his chest, and slammed the door in his face. With the healer’s lesson still fresh in his mind, Zuko could only be grateful.

He learned through suffering; his father had been correct. Suffering was a wonderful teacher - one kinder than the tutors and masters and his mother’s death and father’s eyes - and Zuko learned. He learned to cover himself with foliage in the freezing nights, both to keep warm and to hide himself from the predators that roamed the woods around him. He learned what he could eat as he stumbled through the forest, using the healer’s book as a guide. He quickly learned to stick to foraging rather than hunting, finding himself unable to hurt small creatures but even more than that unable to be near the cooking fire without fear coursing through him, bone-deep.

He stumbled his way through the forest - and then through tiny towns - as quickly as he could. He had acquired the skill of stealth through years of practice in moving silently through the castle, hiding away from the many people who did not look at him kindly, and he used it now to steal food from market stalls. (Other than Uncle Iroh, Azula was the only person who had looked at him kindly since Princess Ursa had died, and even then the kindness came from eyes that looked too much like their father’s.) He took on any job he could, from shoveling cow shit to carrying an old woman’s groceries to more unsavory and more unspeakable tasks, but his mark of shame saw him turned away from the vast majority of opportunities, and he was unable to find anything stable, even as he passed through dozens of towns over dozens of months.

He had wandered onto Hakoda’s farm when he had nearly run out of both coin and luck. He had been nearing death, at that point, a starved thing of fifteen riding an old mule in the pouring rain. He had been hoping that the owner of the farm might allow him to find shelter with the pigs (and, if they didn’t, he might have sought their shelter anyway with the intent to sneak out before sunrise). Instead, he found Hakoda, a strong man who worked his land with pride, carrying most of it on his own shoulders since his wife had passed and his children had begun to seek more gainful employment. Zuko wasn’t sure what Hakoda saw in him that day (what he saw was a boy who could have been his son, too drawn in on himself and much, much too thin), but he had been taken on as a farmhand, paid through a small wage and meals and a warm bed in a little hovel by the barn.

Hakoda’s children were just like him: talented, strong, and unbreakable in spirit. The youngest, Katara, was a brilliant young girl of thirteen, and studied under the village healer. Though she technically lived at home with her father, she was often away, traveling with the healer to even more rural places in need of a talented hand. When Katara was at home, she and Zuko had a respectable working relationship - one might call it a friendship, though Zuko did not have another one of those to compare it to. He would mend her things along with Hakoda’s and his own by the fire, and she would sometimes allow him to eat dinner at the table. It was kind, familial, and infrequent. Zuko liked it. He didn’t say so. He barely ever _said_.

Zuko didn’t meet Hakoda’s eldest, Sokka, until nearly a year into his employment. Hakoda and Katara both spoke very highly of Sokka whenever he came up, albeit with an air of benevolent exasperation. Sokka was a talented young man of sixteen, and was apprenticing under a master swordsmith a few nations away in Shu Jing, not able to come home until the master saw fit for him to do so. Although he did not say, as he barely ever _said_ , Zuko greatly admired this - he _knew_ of Master Piandao of Shu Jing, and knew that “mastery” was an understatement for a swordsmith of his talents. Perhaps, if he was still Prince Zuko, he would have said. Or perhaps if he kept his Piandao-crafted dual dao equipped and not tucked between his bed and the wall. But as it was, he could only ponder and hope that he would meet Sokka one day, that maybe he and his own master’s son could spar and see what the other could do.

He did meet Sokka, one perfect fall afternoon right before harvest season began. Katara had mentioned that he would be returning to help with the harvest (as he was a loyal farmer’s son who knew the importance of the season), as Master Piandao had declared him “adequate enough” and allowed him a season’s leave. Zuko had been collecting carrots in the little garden beside the house when he looked up and saw one of the most beautiful men he had ever seen (Sokka was, of course, one of the world’s twenty most beautiful men, mathematically and objectively), framed by the gorgeous golden glow of a perfect fall sunset. Zuko could do nothing but stare as he walked up, still bent over his work but hands stilled as if frozen by his approach.

Sokka stopped in front of him, looked down at him with perfect blue eyes, his perfect face framed by perfect hair, perfect arms holding a perfect leather bag, perfect sword equipped on his perfect back, perfect lips set into a perfect suspicious line.

“Farm boy,” he said, perfectly, surrounded by a perfect autumn halo. “Tell my father I’ve arrived.”

Zuko rose, standing straight, and inclined his head as if this perfect man was a perfect lord. He felt as if it was the start of _something_ , something that would be impossible to stop. 

“As you wish,” Zuko said, voice raspy by nature as well as rare use. The words, never said before, felt natural on his tongue. He fetched Hakoda, watched as he and Katara ran to hug their dearly loved and sorely missed son and brother. He felt a pang of envy at the sight. Hakoda was the kindest man he had ever met (and the strongest, the wisest, the best) and it was evident in the love he showed Katara, but to see the same kind look, kind touch, kind words to his _son_ \- it struck Zuko’s heart tenfold. 

He did not ignore the way Sokka’s eyes met his own over Hakoda’s shoulder, nor the way they struck his heart in a much different way. Perfect, perfect, perfect blue met his own imperfect gold until Zuko remembered, with a different and much worse strike to his heart, the scar that tainted him. He looked away, bowed his head over the carrots once again, and did his best to politely ignore the family reunion ten feet away. He did not look up again, but he felt when Sokka’s gaze left him as they made their way inside, forgoing chores for the time being in favor of catching up.

He continued to collect the vegetables, listening to their muffled laughter and stories through the wall as they ate Katara’s dinner stew. She would often bring a bowl out to him, but Zuko would never begrudge her for not doing so that night. It was a kindness he didn’t deserve or expect. He left the vegetable basket by the door and went off to finish Katara and Hakoda’s evening tasks, wanting to get away from the familial din as much as he wanted to give them time to reunite before the harvest started in earnest.

Zuko woke with the sun the next morning, as he always did. He stretched, washed his face, pushed back his hair, and stepped out of his little hovel to bask in the chilly morning sun - but his eye caught on Sokka, sitting on the step in front of the house, watching him, curious and cool. Zuko watched him back and felt himself itch to acknowledge him somehow, to bow his head or wave or _say_ something, but he was frozen. Sokka watched him for another moment that might have been short but felt like an age before standing and going back into the main house without a word. Zuko tried to feel glad that his social decision had been made for him, but instead felt rejection poke sharply at him. He pushed the feeling to the side and started towards the shelter where they kept the farming equipment, hoping to sharpen the sickle so it wouldn’t take so much time to cut through the wheat - when Sokka’s clear (perfect) voice stopped him in his tracks. He had come back outside, two tin cups of coffee in his hands. 

“Farm boy,” he said. “Join me.”

Zuko could do nothing but obey, and wanted to do nothing more. “As you wish,” he said, and joined Sokka on the step, sipping bitter coffee and watching the sun rise over the distant hills.

Zuko had finished his drink minutes before but kept bringing the cup to his lips, not wanting to move, not wanting to leave the warmth radiating from Sokka’s side that was just inches away. But he was nothing if not diligent, so he set his cup down without a word, and went to earn his keep.

His devotion to Sokka set in quickly, taking up residence in his heart and mind without his permission, but without his dismissal, either. It went like this:

“Farm boy,” Sokka would say, wiping sweat from his brow after a long day. “Fetch me a pail of water from the well.”

Zuko, just as exhausted and uncomfortable, would only incline his head and say, “As you wish,” and would bring him the heavy pail, set it at his feet, and take his leave.

“Farm boy,” Sokka would say, peering at him in the setting sunlight. “Wash my coat.”

Zuko, eager for dinner and to rest for the night, would fight back a sigh but feel no urge to reject and would say, “As you wish,” and would wash Sokka’s coat in the stream and hang it to dry before fetching dinner from the house, taking it back to his hovel to scarf down before falling into a fitful sleep.

“Farm boy,” Sokka would say, sacks of heavy grain in his arms for their elderly neighbor. “Deliver these for me.”

Zuko, in the middle of loading barley in the hayloft, would lean the pitchfork against the wall, climb down, take the load from Sokka and would say, “As you wish,” making the delivery without complaint, even though the neighbor clearly scorned him for his scar. 

He would come back to the barley baled and loft clean, and would be caught by such surprise that he had to sit, perplexed, for several long minutes. He looked out the barn door and saw Sokka’s perfect blue eyes catch his, a bit of hay caught in his wolftailed hair, evidence of his deed. With a small smile, Sokka would look away, and so would Zuko, and nothing would be said about it.

“Farm boy,” Sokka would say, every morning. “Join me.”

“As you wish,” Zuko would say, and would start his day next to a perfect man, sipping coffee in the morning sun, feeling warmth in the space between them. Three weeks into harvest season, there was no space. Four weeks, it seemed there was even less. Five weeks, Sokka’s head rested against Zuko’s shoulder. Six weeks, it was Sokka’s shoulder and Zuko’s head, Sokka’s deft fingers in Zuko’s soft hair.

Seven weeks, there was no space between their bodies morning or night - there was Sokka in Zuko’s small bed, naked and wanting and perfect in the moonlight, and he would say “Zuko. Kiss me.”

And Zuko would say, “As you wish,” and he would.

Harvest season was brought to a close, and was met with colder days, less work, and fuller coffers. Zuko feared that the end of the season would be the end of Sokka’s stay, but it was just the beginning of Sokka forcing his freezing toes against Zuko’s warm leg under the thick blankets that Sokka had brought from his own bed. Sokka did not return to Master Piandao after the harvest, deciding to make a (very) modest living as a farrier, spending his days over a forge beating out horseshoes and his nights in Zuko’s bed, where they retired every night after a hot dinner with Hakoda and Katara.

“Zuko,” Sokka said one day, his face softer than his voice. His cold fingers brushed against Zuko’s jaw, tracing his scar, but Zuko found himself not minding (if he were honest to himself, he would find himself beyond touched, in heaven with this perfect man touching his imperfect face like it was something precious and treasured). “Do you love me, as I love you?”

Zuko’s breath caught in his throat, his soul yelling ‘yes!’ in a confusing mix of fear and joy and delight and fright and need and want and love. “Do I love you? My God. If your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches. Do I love you? Yes. I love you.”

Sokka’s freezing fingers had stilled against his cheek, but Zuko could barely feel it through the heat of his passion. He was silent just long enough for Zuko to fear that maybe this was a trick, a ruse, a long, cruel act meant to break his heart, but then - Sokka threaded his hand through his hair and pulled him into a kiss, biting and meaningful. (When Sokka said “Zuko. Fuck me,” a rare request and a welcome one, what else could Zuko say but “As you wish”?)

Their tryst continued through the winter chill and the spring harvest and the summer heat and then - before the fields had a chance to fully bloom into their future fortune, before they could reap what they sowed in any way that they could, before there was a chance to save anything, the drought struck their village (and the next, and the next) with a vengeance. Hakoda, Katara, Sokka, and Zuko were united in their numb fear about what this ruined harvest meant for their futures, and were further united by being unable to do anything for it. 

Zuko met Hakoda’s eyes one afternoon, arms sore from chopping wood just for something to _do_. Zuko understood. Hakoda wasn’t able to feed an extra mouth after this, much less pay him wages, and Zuko needed to survive. What’s more, Zuko found that he wanted to _help_. Hakoda had come to be his father in all but blood. He had never laid a cruel hand on him, never said a cruel word. Even when he found his son kissing the farmhand behind the barn, he had just rolled his eyes, clapped them both on the shoulder and said something about the “boyish joys of youth”. Sokka and Zuko ran from each other in embarrassment as soon as he left, only to wander back an hour later to sheepishly resume their activities.

Sokka understood why he had to leave, of course he did. But it didn’t stop the untargeted anger from his perfect eyes, the sad downwards turn of his perfect lips, or the way his perfect body embraced Zuko that last night as if he feared he would never be able to again.

“Return to me.” Sokka said, furtively, furious, passionate.

Zuko put all of the desire, commitment, undying devotion he felt behind the words and said, “As you wish.”

Zuko set off in the morning, boots crunching on the autumn leaves and the dry wheat that he had spent so many hours bringing to fruition. He was unable to keep himself from turning when he reached the gate, feeling like he was once again leaving everything he knew and loved and valued and feared to lose - because he was. Katara, who had grown to be his sister, gave him a watery smile. Hakoda, who had slipped a gold piece into his bag and squeezed his shoulder and said “Come back to us, son”, nodded at him once with solemn belief that he would find success. Sokka, who he had fallen in love with, quick and hard, leaving no room in his body for anything but blind affection, who he had sworn to marry, whispered in the dead of night and in the midst of passion, who could do so much better than a poor, scarred farmhand who had been lucky to be born, waved, the ‘return to me’ in his eyes so obvious that it could have been printed with dark ink.

Zuko turned, and went, and did not come back.

They received the letter a year after Zuko left. He had written to them before, descriptive letters about his adventures and the work he had found, often with all of the small bank notes he could spare despite Hakoda’s demand that he sent no more in every single response Zuko got. (Those letters were addressed to Hakoda & Sokka & Katara. The letters to Sokka specifically were much more descriptive about much different things.) According to his letters, Zuko had found honorable employment on the _Queen’s Heart,_ and had for the past few months found both coin and fulfillment in the grueling work of the ship. This letter was not in the careful script that came from Zuko’s own hand. It was blocky and official and so oblivious to the pain that its words caused.

_Zuko, seafarer, died upon destruction of ship by Blue Spirit and dreaded pirates. Body not recovered. Apologies for your loss._

Katara sat at the table with a soft sob, covering her mouth in shock. Hakoda reread the letter, put it down, and picked it up to reread, like the words might rewrite themselves to be something more pleasant. Sokka stood solemn, gazing at nothing. He turned, walked into his room, shut the door, and did not come out.

Katara left food for him, but it sat untouched. Hakoda leaned against the wall outside, talking to keep him company, but he did not respond. If Zuko was there and told him to eat, Sokka would have said, “As you wish.” If Zuko was there and asked him to speak, Sokka would have said, “As you wish.” If Zuko was there and asked for Sokka to love him always, to hold him in his heart, to never look away from his perfect golden eyes, Sokka would have not needed to say “As you wish” because there is nothing that could have been more obvious in the world and he would have only kissed Zuko soft then hard then forever.

Sokka emerged from his room three days later, standing straight, eyes clear, and mouth set in a way that suggested it may never smile again. Over the past year, he had risen up the ranks to become one of the fifteen most beautiful men in the world, but he gained a strong air of stubborn resolve that would chase any suitor away. He sat at the table for breakfast that morning and ignored the baffled, worried stares of his father and sister. He ate his oats with no flavor, drank coffee with no company, made sure that nothing remained too neglected in his absence, and did not cry. Once they had finished work for the day, Sokka looked at them both. 

“I will never love again,” he said, and meant. He ate his soup and said no more.

As the years went by, Sokka only got more beautiful and more solemn. Suitors did try to seek him out, men and women who were either kind or beautiful or rich but never all three, but his solemnity and resolve to not love assured him his solitude. He continued to farm alongside his father, but their farm (and the next and the next) never truly recovered from that awful harvest. They never had a large bounty to sell, and what bounty they did have was barely enough to keep them afloat. They were surviving, but only just.

This was why Sokka agreed to marry the prince.

Crown Prince Ozai’s procession happened to pass through their village on a day much like one where he met Zuko. The light was bright and golden as the sun began to set, casting a fantastical glow around everything. Zuko had looked like a vision sent by a god who owed Sokka a very large favor, but when Prince Ozai stepped out of his carriage to look them over with a sneer, Sokka could see only a demon with deceptively soft hellfire around him. Ozai’s eyes glanced coldly over Sokka, then Katara, then Sokka again. Katara was one of the thirty most beautiful women in the world, but Sokka was now one of the ten most beautiful men, and that is why Ozai pointed to Sokka, twenty-one and perfect, and said to his attendant, “He will do.”

The attendant quickly jumped into action, grabbing Sokka’s arm with the clear intent to drag him away from his family, his farm, his home. Sokka dug his heels into the ground and looked at the prince with indignant trepidation. “I’ll do for what?”

“You are to marry the Prince.” the attendant said, tugging on Sokka’s arm impatiently.

“To marry the Prince? I will not marry the Prince!” Sokka saw Ozai’s eyebrow twitch up in a dangerous way, and quickly added, “I cannot marry the Prince, I do not love him.”

The attendant looked ready to beg him to hush but Ozai laughed cruelly, already turning to enter the carriage again. He did not look at Sokka as he spoke, voice derisive. “I do not care if you love me.”

Sokka stared at his back, trying to calculate. “I would never love you.”

“I would never want you to love me.” Ozai said, sitting prim but imposing in his carriage, silk robes dull around the bottom hem where they had brushed the ground.

Sokka glanced at the attendant, glanced at his family, glanced at the attendant, and glanced at the prince. “My family will be taken care of?”

Ozai waved a bored hand in dismissal and the coachmen closed the door. The attendant looked almost relieved to be out of Ozai’s sight and looked at Sokka with a put-upon glare. “You will be offered a dowry fit for a Prince’s betrothed. Would you stop this whining and _come_?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sokka saw Katara quickly shaking her head and Hakoda opening his mouth to say something like “no, son” or “don’t be foolish” or “do not give up on love, maybe one day you will feel it again” and it was the last that made Sokka react. “I’ll marry the Prince.”

The attendant slumped in relief and Ozai’s carriage began to depart, one much less ostentatious but still more opulent than anything Sokka had ever seen pulled into its place. Katara wrapped Sokka in a hug; Hakoda joined and held them both close to his chest. 

“You don’t have to do this, Sokka,” Hakoda said, pressing a kiss to his brow.

“No,” Sokka agreed, and, as loveless as he was, he loved his family fiercely, and found himself clinging to their tunics desperately. When the attendant finally lost his patience and tugged him away, he felt that he could have ripped the fabric if he had not let go. He was bustled into the carriage, a hastily packed bag at his feet, and watched as his father and sister waved and cried and got smaller and smaller and smaller.

Two long years later, perfect Sokka found himself behind perfect stained glass doors in the perfect castle of the perfect nation of Caldera. He felt he should hate it, but he could not feel anything, just as he did not feel anything as he looked at his fiance speaking to what seemed to be an infinite crowd of countless citizens.

“As you know,” Crown Prince Ozai was saying, his commanding voice and imposing body adding up to a domineering presence, “my father, King Azulon, is in failing health, but I, his loyal son, am entrusted with the care of the great nation of Caldera. As you know, the care of the great nation of Caldera requires two people, four hands, to hold her prosperity close to her bosom. As you know, my late wife Princess Ursa is a late wife, and I must have two hands with mine. As you know, the great nation of Caldera is approaching her five-hundredth anniversary. As you now know, on the evening of that great and honorable day, I shall take for my husband Sokka of the Southern Bend.”

Ozai gestured broadly towards the door, it was opened for him and without pause Sokka stepped through.

The crowd gasped, taken aback at this most beautiful creature. He had been one of the twenty most beautiful men in the world when he first kissed Zuko; he had been one of the ten most beautiful men in the world when he agreed to marry Prince Ozai; now that he was oiled and powdered and pampered and dressed by a staff of royal keepers, he was one of the top five. Most of the commoners below had no idea that such perfection even existed, that such clear and tawny skin could be seen outside of dreams, that such strong shoulders could be contained in royal silk, that such clear blue eyes could balance between cutting diamonds or shattering ice. Ozai spared his beautiful prize a generous glance as the crowd cheered. A wedding always brightened the mood.

Sokka gave the crowd a small, perfect wave, and the crowd cheered once more with quickly renewed vigor. The vast majority of his soon-to-be subjects adored him instantly, his perfect figure perfect for a royal, with a tantalizing whisper of spirit hidden within him. Some, of course, were jealous. Some, of course, hated him. In a considerably lucky statistic, only three in attendance were planning on murdering him. But Sokka felt untouchable in that moment, on the heighty balcony beside the second most powerful man in the world, even though he didn’t love him. If he had known death was looking for him so close by he would have laughed. He waved once more to the roaring crowd and turned, going inside without harm, doors closing behind him and muffling the noise of thousands of people, Ozai walking past him swiftly and with no mind paid to him at all.

Outside, in the farthest corner of the royal square, in the tallest building, in the deepest shadow, the man in black stood, watching. His leather boots were black, as was his shirt, his pants, his mask - but his eyes shone gold, bright and glinting and deadly.

The next day, once the hubbub had died down and the out-of-city crowds had gone home, Sokka followed his strict, personally-imposed schedule that he had followed for the past two years of his life at the castle. Without the hard labor that Sokka was accustomed to and found so rewarding, he had turned to studies to occupy his loveless mind. 

His schedule was as follows: awake at six, breakfast alone at seven, walk around the gardens at eight, study science at nine, mathematics at ten, history at eleven, science again because he liked it so much at noon, have his daily meeting with Ozai at one, study literature at three minutes past one, lunch alone at two, practice swordsmanship at three, ride the grounds far enough so he cannot see castle walls until dinner alone at seven, read by the fire at eight, do not think of Zuko do not think of home do not cry at nine, and sleep at ten. It was predictable, boring, solid, and just the thing Sokka needed to survive.

He woke, he ate, he walked, he studied, he glanced at Ozai, he studied, he ate, he fought, and now, he rode. His horse was a fast curmudgeon named Horse and he would have loved her had he vowed to not love again. She did not love him, but it was a productive and symbiotic relationship that allowed them both to run, so he accepted her snappish attitude with grace. He did everything with grace nowadays.

Sokka didn’t need to guide Horse at this point; she knew the exact path they took, each twist and turn, each fox den to watch for and each grazing patch where deer may be. He held her reins loosely as she galloped till they reached the gentle brook they both thought of as theirs a few miles away from the castle. He slid from her saddle with practiced ease, patting her flank and ignoring the annoyed swoosh of her tail as it thwacked his face. He sat on the stone he always sat on in the spot he always sat on, the moss rubbed clean away from these two years of use. The brook always reminded him of home, particularly now that he had been commanded to stop writing to his family so often. The water reminded him of Katara, laughing and insistent, shining and pretty. The rocks themselves reminded him of Hakoda, strong and resilient, loyal and weathered. It made him sad, sometimes, often, but it was good to have familiar company. He took out the book from his pocket - not one of his study books but a fiction that had a great deal of romance that his mind scorned and scoffed at but his heart ached and yearned for. It was a secret folly that he would indulge in till the wedding, he had decided. Then it was better to put any small folly of love at least twelve feet under ground.

He sat on his rock, by his stream, with his horse, and opened his book, as he always did. That was all he remembered. When he woke, he was bound with coarse rope around his wrists and ankles, the sound of water lapping against wood unexpected, the shifting deck under his aching head unwelcome, and the three faces around him utterly unfamiliar.

“Who are you?” he slurred, trying to push himself up. One of the figures, a bald _child_ of all things, pushed his shoulder down with just enough force to make him comply.

“Don’t sit up so fast. We might have given you a little too much ether to knock you out,” he grinned. “Sorry, blame Toph.”

“Hey!” Another _child,_ a girl, a _blind_ girl protested. Sokka wondered if he had hit his head. “I got asked to do something, I did it, anything else is on you.”

“What’s—happening?” Sokka asked, hoping that he had been caught up in some play game made up by a group of imaginative and too-capable children. “Who are you? Where am I?”

“On a boat, stupid,” said the blind kid. “I’m Toph, that’s Aang, you’re our captive.”

“Your captive. I’m—why?”

“Uh—” Aang laughed a little, like he couldn’t tell if Sokka was joking or not. “You’re the prince? Or you will be, I guess. Or will you be king? I’m never really sure—”

“Doesn’t matter what he is or isn’t, Aang. He’s our job.” Toph stuck her tongue out.

“Your _job_ ,” said a much deeper voice from much higher above, “is to man the sails. You’re not getting paid to chat with the prisoner.”

Toph blew her bangs up with a raspberry but straightened and walked across the deck, Aang following her after shooting Sokka a sorry smile. Sokka desperately wished for the company of the weird, clever children when he looked up into the stern face of a man with a strong brow, a thick beard, and an unforgiving expression.

“Sokka of the Southern Bend,” the man sneered, arms crossed over his broad chest. “Welcome. I do hope your trip has been comfortable.”

Sokka glared at him and felt fight-or-flight battle within him. “It could have been better. You should work on your hospitality skills. Now _who are you_ _?_ ”

The man laughed and Sokka did not like the sound. “I’m General Fong. I’m here to deliver you to the coast of Ba Sing Se.”

“To—why? Why would Ba Sing Se want me?” He wasn’t stupid and he was well-read, especially when it came to war and history. He knew that any kidnapped royal or royal-to-be could be held for a lofty ransom, or to turn the tides of a battle, or—as a trophy, dead or alive. “Is it Ba Sing Se that wants me?”

Fong grinned and it was evident that he did not grin much unless it was for someone else’s pain. He patted Sokka’s head condescendingly, laughing when Sokka tried to duck to escape it. “Smart boy. Too bad you’re pretty. Ozai might have picked some other lamb to slaughter.”

It didn’t necessarily _click_ but it did make sense. Sokka knew Ozai liked war. War was profitable, and made gods of kings and demons of enemies, and he believed that Ozai would very much like to be a god. And since there was no love between them, and there was a guarantee that love between them would never, never come, Sokka was an easy pawn for reigniting a war that had barely been put out. They would find his horse alone in Caldera, they would follow the no doubt unsubtle path that his captors had left, they would find his body in Ba Sing Se and would assume that he was killed by their enemy nation. He had already become loved by the commoners of the Caldera; he was kind to those he met, and a perfect sight for those he didn’t, and even beyond that, he had been common too, once. The people would take his death just as Ozai wanted them to - as something worthy of revenge, of fire, and of war.

Fong grinned again, crossing his arms behind his back and standing with his feet shoulder-length apart, looking out at the night. A General indeed; he looked the part. “Yes, too bad. It should have taken your horse twenty-seven minutes to get to the castle, another five for the stablehands to realize something’s wrong, another hour to figure out that you have been taken, so I would say that they are within two hours of us. It’s perfect timing, truly. When His Highness finds his beloved's body on the cliffs of Ba Sing Se, it will still be warm! Oh, I imagine he will weep over you. Who could blame him for seeking vengeance?”

One of Sokka’s eyes twitched. Even if he had not been kidnapped by this vile man, he is sure that he would hate him. To be condescended to and underestimated within the same minute was too much for anyone to handle. “What do you get out of this? Starting a war that will see people killed, all at the whim of your callous prince?”

General Fong laughed and knelt down in front of him. “Want to know something, pretty consort? He is no prince of mine. I’m from Ba Sing Se. I worked my way up from some orphan brat to a soldier to a General, one of the best. I have no love for Caldera, but Ozai and I have an understanding. War is good for us. We end up with cash in our pockets and angry peasants ready to attack at the first sign of danger. War is good for business. And,” he grinned and stroked Sokka’s cheek, “I don’t mind killing.”

Sokka spat in his face, earning a furious yell and a resounding slap. Sokka grinned through pain-bidden tears as Fong wiped his face on his sleeve. The bruise on his cheek would surely be worth it, even as Fong growled that he was lucky they needed Sokka’s body or he’d be thrown overboard and left to be devoured by the ravenous eel-sharks. The thought did cause Sokka’s smile to fade. He had nearly drowned playing in the pond as a child, and he would have died if not for Katara’s quick actions. Katara was not here, and there would be no one to drag him from the water should he fall. While Sokka had grown almost tired of life, without love and Zuko and his family and Zuko and his home and Zuko, death by razor-toothed eel-sharks was not the way he wished to go. He leaned against the short wall of the ship, embraced his stinging cheek, and watched his captors sail to kill him in an appropriate place.

Aang was glancing his way, his worried face betraying his age. The furrow of his brow was made all the more evident by his bald head. Toph was not looking his way (or at anything), opting to hold on to a thick rope of the rigging to keep steady on the swaying deck. But there was something distinctly tense about her posture, something that seemed conflicted. Maybe he had a chance with these two. Maybe they would keep Fong from killing him in too brutal a manner.

Toph huffed and let go of the rope, grabbing a blanket from a heavy trunk and stomping over to him. If Sokka had not seen her cloudy eyes and not-quite-direct gaze, he would have never questioned her sight - if he had not seen her hold the rigging steady, he _would_ have questioned her strength. She was _small_ , just like her compatriot, but they seemed capable and experienced in a way that made Sokka’s heart ache, just a little. They could be no older than eighteen, maybe younger, obviously experienced from the rough life they seemed to lead but largely unmarred by the marks that come with injury and age. With near-perfect accuracy, Toph threw the blanket at Sokka, hitting him in the face but adjusting it so it was wrapped around his shoulders, keeping out the worst of the chilly ocean air.

“Thank you,” Sokka said, a little perplexed by this obvious kindness. She slugged him in the arm to make up for it.

“Don’t grow too soft, _Bandit_ ,” Fong said from the helm, derision in his voice. “It would be like growing fond of a cow destined for the axe.”

“Fuck off,” Toph grumbled. “I don’t want _the cow_ to get a cold. I wouldn’t fight a sick man, so you shouldn't kill a sick man, either.”

Fong rolled his eyes but objected no further, his attention catching instead on Aang sitting at the aft, who had started to look back at the black ocean every other minute. “What are you doing? Make yourself useful.”

Aang hummed but didn’t stand. “The Prince should be two hours behind us, right?”

“Right,” Fong confirmed.

“So no one could be following us yet?”

Fong scoffed. “Of course no one could be following us. It would be impossible.”

“Absolutely impossible?”

“Absolutely impossible in all ways, and in all other ways inconceivable.” After a moment, Aang cast another look behind him and Fong cast another look at Aang. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” said Aang, standing and stretching his wiry limbs. “Only I happened to look back and a ship was there.”

Fong whirled around, as did Toph, and Sokka’s own neck ached from the way he strained to see. Aang was correct; there was something there. A sailing boat was outlined in the moonlight, small and black and persistent. At the tiller was the dark outline of a single person, clothed all in black.

“It must be some idiot fisherman, hoping to catch night fish alone in eel-shark infested waters,” Fong said gruffly. “Perhaps there is a more reasonable explanation. But no one in Caldera could have caught up so quickly, and no one in Ba Sing Se would know what we’ve done, so it must be coincidence and nothing more.”

Aang nodded, reasonably. “Yes, that’s likely it. He is gaining on us, though.” The General hid his anxieties well, but not well enough. Even Toph could see how it changed the air around him.

“No matter,” he said, looking up at the massive cliffs of the Serpent’s Pass. The cliffs were massive, an impossible climb. And yet, Toph was hopping off of the boat onto a flat rock and strapping herself into a sturdy harness, an incredibly long rope dangling in front of her from the very top of the cliff. Sokka swallowed, nervous even looking at the sheer height. He could barely even see the top, as it was so tall that it seemed shrouded by clouds. “We’re exactly where we need to be. Even if he was following us, which he is not, he could never go where we are going.”

“Up there?” Sokka burst out incredulously. “You expect us to climb up _there_? That’s insane!”

“Quiet!” Fong ordered, hoisting him over the side and onto the rock, Aang following behind. Fong tied a strap from Toph’s vest around Sokka, then tied one around himself as Aang did the same. “Go!” 

Toph, impossibly, began to climb, one hand after another, moving steadily up. Sokka gaped as he stared upwards, the top of the massive cliff becoming slowly more visible with every instance of this child’s incredible strength. They were five-hundred feet from the water when Aang looked down, with five-hundred feet left to go. “Huh,” he said. “The man has caught up with us. He’s starting to climb.”

Fong looked down and saw the same as Aang: a masked man, clad in black, climbing after them, and was gaining on them quickly. Fong snapped at Toph angrily. “Faster!”

Toph picked up the pace, arms straining but not giving out. When Fong snapped again, “ _Faster!_ ”, she bit out, “I’m going faster! But I’m carrying you three and he’s carrying only himself.” Nonetheless, Toph reached the top with amazing speed, leaving two-hundred and fifty feet between them and the still-climbing masked man.

Fong quickly untied himself from Toph, leaving Aang to free Sokka and Toph to free herself. He ran to the rock where the rope was tied and used the sharp knife from his belt to saw through it. As soon as the last strand was cut, the rope raced over the edge, dropping with a thump against the rocks below. Sokka sighed as his hope fell with it, slowly coming to terms with his inevitable death.

Aang hopped to look over the side of the cliff and raised his eyebrows. “He caught himself on the rocks. He’s hanging on. He’s climbing.”

“Impossible!” Fong yelled, storming over to peer over the edge. Indeed, the man in black had found a handhold on the rocks before the rope fell, he had hung on, and now he was climbing, slower and with much more struggle than before but still steadily and with great strength. Fong growled. “Inconceivable. Toph, grab the boy. Aang, take care of the bastard.”

Aang looked between Fong and the man in black, who was looking up at him with a curiously neutral expression. “I won’t kill him without a fair fight.”

With an exasperated groan, General Fong decided that this was a useless argument to have, and it was one that wasted valuable time. “Fine! Do what you will, but do what you must. Tear him down.” Casting a look over the edge again, where the man in black had advanced an incredible fifty feet, he added, “Make it hurt.”

Aang nodded, even as his stomach turned with confliction. But Fong had kept him from certain death and Toph from certain destruction and both from certain doom more than once, and Fong stored their life debts in Toph’s hands and Aang’s sword. They had been alone and lost in their own ways. Toph had left her too-caring-but-uncaring parents, who had expected her to be a demure little lady and dismissed her incredible strength. Aang had _been_ left, his adoptive father murdered along with their entire village, leaving only Aang alive because Gyatso had protected him with his last breath. He devoted his life to finding the man who had killed Gyatso - which proved to be a near-insurmountable challenge of its own, given that the only way that Aang would be able to identify him would be if the man did in fact wear the precious heirloom that he had torn from the neck of his dead father as a trophy. Fong had found him exhausted and practically drained of life, his entire childhood spent searching for a man he never found. He added Aang to his two-person collection, allowing him to possess a master swordsman and one of the world’s strongest people - both youths of fifteen, both easy to control, both easy to convince of their indebtedness, enough that they remained with him these three years later.

Toph had thrown Sokka over her shoulder, even though she was only two-thirds his height, if that. “Farewell, Aang. I’ll see you soon.”

Aang nodded, even though she could not see. No matter how dangerous the situations they found themselves in were, it was always the truth. There was no reason for this to be different. “Farewell, Toph. I’ll see you soon.”

Then they were gone, and Aang was alone. Well - not wholly alone. He looked over the cliff’s edge once more, giving the man in black a little wave when he glanced up. “Hello.”

The man in black gave him an unamused look before continuing his climb. “Hello.”

“You’re very strong, you know. That climb cannot be easy. Toph is one of the world’s twenty strongest people, and even she struggled.” Aang was a pleasant boy, and he enjoyed talking to others. Even those he intended to kill.

“Thank you,” said the man in black. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I am rather busy right now, so please try not to distract me.”

“Oh! Yes, I guess you are. My apologies.” Aang managed to watch him silently for two minutes and nineteen seconds. “I don’t suppose you could hurry up, could you? I’m eager to fight you.”

The man in black cast an aggravated glare at him, a few feet closer than he had been two minutes and nineteen seconds ago. “I cannot hurry up. Unless I have a rope or branch or easier rocks to climb.”

Aang perked up with a smile. “I have a rope! But I don’t think you’d want me to help, since I am planning to kill you.”

With a huff from anger and effort, the man in black continued to climb. “Then I suppose you’ll have to wait. _Quietly_.”

The man in black was now one hundred feet away. Ninety-five. Eighty. Aang sighed. He was being honest, he was eager to fight and more eager to stop waiting around for him to complete his slow ascent, he had never been a patient man. “What if I promised to not kill you before you reach the top? I’ll even wait a few moments so you can catch your breath!”

The man remained silent and focused, and continued his slow climb until he was sixty-two feet away. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? You might help me up, but you equally might let me go. Even if you intend to kill me, I do not wish to speed up my death.”

Aang squinted down at him in thought before his face lit up. “I swear on my father, Gyatso, who is dead and buried and who I loved very much, that I will help you up and I will not drop you and I will not kill you until you are ready to fight.”

The man in black considered him for a moment before nodding. “Throw me the rope.”

Aang did, gladly. He hated waiting and he loved fighting. He loved helping, too, even if it was before he was to fight the one he was helping. Just a moment later, the man in black was beside Aang, hands on his knees as his heart raced and he tried to catch his breath. True to his word, Aang stepped back and kept his broadsword sheathed. “Please, sit. Rest.”

The man in black nodded and sat on a rock, stretching this way and that to shake the soreness from his muscles. “Thank you,” he said, only three minutes later. “I’m ready.”

“Are you sure? You have only a little while before you’re dead.” At the man in black’s nod, Aang laughed and drew his sword, testing the weight in his hand. “You’re an interesting man. I hate to kill you.”

The man in black inclined his head respectfully, drawing the dual dao that had been strapped to his back. “You’re an interesting man. I hate to die.”

And they began. Before they even drew their swords, Aang knew the man in black was strong, and capable, and tenacious, and that he was driven by something greater than life. Why else would he so stubbornly pursue them? No one did that for nothing. What Aang did not know before they began to fight was that the man in black was an excellent swordsman, nearing Aang’s own skill, perhaps matching it head on. He had never found anyone of this caliber, who was able to match him blade to blade, blow for blow - it was absolutely thrilling.

It is said that it takes ten thousand hours of practice to master a skill, and the man in black moved as if he had around two hundred left to go, driving Aang across the terrain as many times as Aang drove him. The man in black caught Aang’s broadsword between his dao, and Aang met his eyes in shock as his weapon was thrown yards away, lodging itself in the ground. Aang darted towards it, moving across the rocks and ruins with the agility of an acrobat. The man in black followed and parried the freshly-dislodged sword by blocking the hit with his dao.

At that point, Aang stopped holding back. The ferocity of their fencing was unmatched; the complexity of their movements impossible to describe. They were both masters of the art, clever quick-thinking strategists enjoying the play of a deadly game. Aang cornered the man in black against a boulder, the man in black pushed Aang to the very edge of the cliff; Aang parried from high ground, the man in back countered from low; Aang drew first blood, and the man in black paused.

“You’re very good,” he said, his black sleeve cut to reveal his lightly bleeding arm.

“Thank you,” Aang replied, unsuccessfully slicing at him again. “I have worked very hard to become so. You’re very good, too.”

“Thank you,” he said, drawing second blood with a cut to Aang’s shoulder. “It has not come without effort.”

Aang the swordsman and the man in black fought for several fierce moments more, and it became clearer and clearer that Aang was losing. It was by the man’s good fortune - they fought without obstacles, the sun was slightly less in his eyes, the ground just slightly more stable - but he was a small percentage better than Aang at that moment. A hair quicker, a fraction stronger, a speck faster. Just barely. But just enough.

“Who _are_ you?” Aang asked desperately.

“No one of consequence,” the man in black replied.

“Please tell me. I must know.”

“Get used to disappointment.”

And with that, Aang felt a burst of energy flow through his body and he made every attempt, tried every trick, used every drop of the blood, sweat, and tears that had gone into his life of training. He was blocked, again and again; baffled, thwarted, muzzled -

Beaten.

Aang dropped his sword and fell to his knees, youthful and amazed. “Make it quick,” he said, lifting his head so there would be clearer access to his throat.

“I would sooner die than kill an artist like yourself. However - you understand that I must not let you follow me, yes?”

“Of course,” Aang agreed amicably, falling bodily to the side after the man in black struck his head with the butt of his sword.

The man in black continued his pursuit, following the trail of the strong girl, the General, and the perfect man.

General Fong happened to glance behind them at just the right moment, at just the right spot that allowed him to see Aang’s distant, fallen form and the insistent shadow that was the man in black.

“Impossible!” He growled, kicking a boulder and pretending that it did not hurt his foot. “He cannot have beaten Aang. Aang has never been beaten before.”

“He has now,” Toph said, adjusting Sokka where he lay over her shoulders. Toph was not entirely worried about Aang. He told her he would see her soon, and Aang was no liar. Perhaps she would be worried if she saw the General’s fang-like grimace.

“Give me the boy. Stay here and finish him.”

“Finish him?” Toph asked as she set Sokka down (though she seemed to be sympathetic, she was not gentle, and Sokka thunked onto the ground with an _oof_ ).

Fong dragged Sokka up by his arm, gripping him hard enough to leave a dark bruise. He cut the rope around Sokka’s ankles but made up for it by tying a strip of coarse fabric around his head to act as a blindfold; Sokka’s chance of escape grew dramatically when he had been half-unbound, and his chance of escape shrank dramatically when he could no longer see. He did not know the geography here, and, if he could not even see the potential dangers, it would be of no use to run. Sokka was still trying to figure out if it would be better to die from whatever Fong would do to him or from unknown dangers he couldn’t sense. For the time being, he figured it was better to decide this before deciding to run.

“Finish him. Or I’ll find a new brute along with a new swordsman,” Fong confirmed, and then left Toph to herself, dragging Sokka with no attention paid to his comfort. 

Toph listened to them go and tried to not feel the sting of his words, but they were very sharp. She had felt alone her whole life, and to be left just as she felt right would be terrible; she did not want to return to her parents’ sweet empty words and high-walled home. It was as good a driving force as any. As quick and light as he was, the man in pursuit (for she did not know for herself that he was a man in black) could not muffle his movements entirely. Toph listened to the shifting rocks that betrayed his steps and knew exactly where to aim.

A small boulder smashed against the large boulder behind the man in black, the force leaving only gravel to fall; it had come flying seemingly out of nowhere, and had missed his head by a measly two inches. The blind girl stepped closer, a solid, unseeing presence. “I meant to miss.”

“I believe you,” said the man in black. He believed her.

“I don’t want an unfair fight.” The man in black knew she did not mean that he had the advantage. It was not a grown man fighting a blind girl, it was a grown man of great strength fighting a young woman of the greatest strength, who could throw boulders the size of small horses and leave him nothing but a crushed melon bleeding out on the ground. “I can kill you quickly, or I can give you a chance.”

“I’ll take the chance,” said the man in black, and Toph set down her boulder, he sheathed his dao, and they began to fight.

Toph knew that the man was strong (only a few people could climb the cliffs of the Serpent’s Pass as they had done. Maybe he was not in the twenty strongest like she was, but he was capable), but Toph also knew he was very lithe and thin, and, no matter how strong he was, he could never be as solid as she. Toph wanted to at least pretend it was a fair fight, though; she allowed him a few hits that she barely felt, but made sure to punch him good in the gut so he would stop holding back. He was considerably strong, even if he wasn’t the strongest, and Toph had to put up a nearly-real fight. Once she was convinced that the man in pursuit would not die embarrassed, she began to move in earnest, arms wrapping around his shoulders in a vice-like grip, moved an arm to press against his throat, prepared to kill him - and then he slipped free.

“What?” she couldn’t help but say. He had done some clever maneuver, using his flexible form to twist and escape her inescapable hold. Toph moved again, catching him easily, raised her fist to make the killing blow - and then he slipped free.

It went on like that for several rounds, Toph growing more and more frustrated, angry and determined with each failed attempt, fighting hard to keep herself from getting sloppy in her rage. “You’re quick,” she said, impressed and unhappy.

“Good thing, too,” the man in pursuit agreed as he deftly twisted once more. “You’re strong.”

Toph almost wanted to grin; her wit was rarely matched in the middle of a fight, her opponents often unable to do anything but catch their breath as they desperately fought against her and against loss. Toph did not grin, however, as she remembered how Aang lay defeated by the cliff’s edge, alone and possibly dead. Probably dead, the sad voice of a little girl whispered in the back of her mind. “You killed my friend.”

“I did no such thing,” said the man in pursuit, slipping from her hold once more. “He’ll wake up with an awful headache but he _will_ wake.”

That was enough to give Toph pause. What sort of villain allowed an enemy to live, especially when they had been fairly beaten and could have been fairly killed? She became thoughtful about this. Was he a villain? If he was not, were they? Her hesitance gave the man in pursuit just enough time to sidle beside her, pressing quick fingers to her temple then neck then jaw then shoulder with purpose.

Toph fell to the ground, her legs unable to hold her up, arms unable to fight, head unable to lift, and mind unable to stay awake. She was alive, of course, but would have a headache to match Aang’s when she woke. The man in black took care to drag her to a more comfortable patch of grass just a short distance away so she would not feel rocks on her spine for the next week. Then the man in pursuit continued to pursue, following the path Fong left behind.

The General was waiting for him (he would have been shocked if the General had not been waiting). Sokka sat stiffly beside him, blindfolded, thin-lipped, wrists tightly bound, and with Fong’s sharp knife held against his perfect throat. In front of them was a quaint picnic; a small plate of cheese and apples, a thin lit candle, two goblets, and a bottle of wine.

“You defeated my swordsman,” Fong said. 

“So I did,” the man in black agreed.

“You defeated my brute,” Fong said.

“So it would seem,” the man in black agreed.

“You will not defeat me,” Fong claimed.

“So we shall see,” the man in black stated, stepping forward.

Fong’s knife pressed harder against Sokka’s throat. If it weren’t for the rapid beating of his heart and the quick barely-rise and barely-fall of his chest, Sokka’s cool, cold face would have betrayed no fear, only grim acceptance. “Come any closer and the consort will die.”

The man in black froze and Fong grinned. He loved when risky threats played out so well. “I don’t appreciate this behavior, kind sir. You are trying to steal what I have rightfully stolen, and I am afraid you will not succeed.” Fong withdrew his blade from Sokka’s throat just enough to run the sharp point over his perfect jaw, a threat to them both, though the unpleasantness was meant just for Sokka. “I have been given very clear instructions on what to do with this particular package, and they do not involve handing him off to some vigilante just for his annoying persistence.”

“I suppose not,” said the man in black. “But it would not be just for my annoying persistence. I have gone through great effort and expense and personal sacrifice to reach this point, you see, and if I fail now, I will be incredibly angry.” He glanced significantly at the knife held once more at Sokka’s perfect throat. “And should he bleed, I am afraid that I will be even angrier.”

Fong laughed and made no move to draw blood nor not pull away. “I have no doubt you could kill me. You killed my swordsman and you killed my brute, and I am not half the fighter they were. But know this - you want the boy alive; I want the boy dead. You want his ransom; I want no ransom at all. There is no winning for you here, my masked friend.”

“I am not your friend,” said the man in black. “Nor are your brute and swordsman dead. But how are you so convinced that I will not win? You have admitted yourself that I could kill you with ease.”

“I don’t plan to fight you. I am Ba Sing Se’s best General, a master strategist, and you are no match for my mind.”

The man in black quirked a brow. It was not evident that it was quirked, of course, as his face was shrouded by the black mask, but the air about him changed in a way that greatly suggested a quirked brow. “You’re that smart?”

“There are no words yet invented that could explain how great my brain is.”

The man in black nodded. “In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits.”

“For the consort?”

“For the consort.”

Sokka had not yet moved. He had not tried to free his wrists or unblind his eyes or protect his throat, but his mind was absolutely racing. Despite how frightful the situation was - being taken from his stream and put on a boat and trundled up a cliffside and held at knifepoint by an angry army man while some mysterious stranger with secret intent vying for his possession - there was something tingling in his limbic system, prickling with pins and needles like a limb that had been numb for approximately three years. How awfully odd.

Fong’s knife stayed at Sokka’s throat as the man in black approached and sat across the makeshift table, pouring wine for them both. Fong watched with shrewd curiosity as he drew out a small vial of white powder, uncorking it and holding it out carefully. “Smell, but do not touch.”

Fong leaned and sniffed. “I don’t smell anything.”

“Correct. The thing you do not smell is white jade powder. It is one of the deadliest poisons in the world. Imbibing just a drop will kill you within minutes. It is scentless and tasteless and dissolves immediately - a silent killer.” With this, the man in black took the full goblets and vial and turned around, busying himself for a long moment before turning back towards the table. Very carefully, he sat the right goblet in front of Fong, the left goblet in front of himself, and the empty white jade vial beside the wine bottle. “It is your guess now. Where is the poison?”

Fong scoffed derisively. “I do not _guess_ , my friend.”

“I am not your friend.”

Fong ignored him, stroking his beard with one hand and holding the knife steady against Sokka’s throat with the other. “I think, I ponder, I deduce, I decide, but I never guess.”

The man in black shrugged, the movement looking too casual for his body. “Then think, ponder, deduce and decide. The game is won when you choose which goblet to drink from, and which I shall drink from, and when we drink at precisely the same time. The winner is the one who is not dead.”

“It’s so simple,” Fong said, squinting at the goblets. “All I have to do is think, ponder, deduce and decide how your mind works. Are you the type of man to poison your own glass or the glass of the enemy?”

“You’re stalling,” said the man in black.

“I’m relishing,” Fong said, stroking his beard once more. “You gave my swordsman a loss, my brute a fight, and me a challenge that I shall inevitably win.” With a deep breath, he leaned forward, knife still at Sokka’s throat. “Only a great fool would poison his own wine, because he knows that one’s first impulse would be to reach for the wine that has been given to him. However, only a great fool would reach first for the wine he is given, and I am not a great fool, so I will not reach for my wine.”

“So that is your choice?”

“Not at all! Because I am not a great fool and you knew I am not a great fool and you thus knew I would not fall for such a wise trick, so I will clearly not reach for yours either.”

“So what is your choice?”

“I am getting there.” Fong growled. He was either enjoying himself greatly or close to a conniption from the way his brows were beginning to meet in the middle. “I have now deduced that the poisoned wine is most likely in front of you, but the poison is a powder made from white jade, and white jade only comes from Pohuai and, as everyone knows, Pohuai is a stronghold of criminals, and criminals are not people who can be trusted, but they are used to having people not trust them, and, as I do not trust you, I clearly cannot choose the wine in front of you!”

“You’re stalling,” said the man in black. His voice was steady, but the General could see with his knowledgeable eyes that he was growing nervous.

“I am explaining my reasoning that will lead to your death. Be grateful,” Fong huffed and continued. “You must have expected me to know the origins of white jade and the population of Pohuai and the immorality of criminals so _clearly_ I cannot choose the wine in front of me.”

“Clearly,” said the man in black. “So which shall you drink?”

“But _,_ ” Fong ignored him, peering at the glasses shrewdly. “You bested my brute, which means that you are exceptionally strong, and exceptionally strong men are often foolish enough to believe that they are too strong to die, so you may have put it in your cup believing your strength will save you, so clearly I cannot choose the wine in front of you.”

The man in black, Fong believed, had to be exceptionally nervous.

“ _But_ ,” Fong continued, peering at the man in black shrewdly. “You bested my swordsman, which means you have studied as he studied to achieve excellence, and studied men know how mortal we are and do not wish to die, so you would keep the poison as far from yourself as possible as you do not wish to die, so I clearly cannot choose the wine in front of me.”

The man in black’s voice, Fong believed, shook with a nervousness that any man less wise than himself would believe was anger. “You’re just trying to get me to give something away with all of this chittering but it won’t work. You will learn nothing from me, I can promise you that.”

Fong grinned proudly and prideful. “I have learned everything from you.”

“So you have made your decision?” the man in black asked, voice loud from what was surely nerves. “Then drink.”

The General only laughed at his outburst, but his face twisted into something confused as he pointed over the man in black’s shoulder. “What is that?”

The man in black turned and looked. “I don’t see anything.”

Fong was grinning madly to himself when the man in black turned back around, and ignored his suspicious masked gaze. “I could have sworn I saw something. No matter. Shall we drink?”

He picked up the goblet in front of him, and the man in black picked up the goblet in front of him, and together, they drank their wine.

“You guessed wrong,” said the man in black.

Fong laughed loudly and gestured at him with the knife that had just been held at Sokka’s throat. “You only think I guessed wrong, you fool! I switched our glasses when your back was turned!”

The man in black said nothing. Fong imagined that he saw terror in the gold eyes behind the mask as he acknowledged his pending doom, reflecting on his last moments, bested by the smartest man that had ever walked the earth. Fong had just opened his mouth to boast, wanting the last thing the foolish man in black to hear to be his voice, when the white jade powder took effect. 

With a loud thump, Fong fell to the ground, dead.

Sokka jumped at the sound and the man in black quickly stepped over the still-smiling corpse, carefully removing the blindfold from Sokka’s eyes. Sokka blinked at the sudden sunlight, and at the man in black before him, framed in the bright golden sunlight of a spring afternoon.

“Oh,” he said, quiet and proper. He was always quiet and proper nowadays. He had trained for the past two years to be. “It was your wine that was poisoned after all.”

“Wrong,” said the man in black, untying the rope around his wrists with talented hands. There was something about his voice that made Sokka’s heart ache, just a little, in the very back area that he was still working to suppress. “Both of our wines were poisoned. I’ve spent the past year building up an immunity to white jade powder, should a moment like this ever arise.”

The concept was terrifying to Sokka, as was the man in black’s demeanor, the way he carried himself, his dark clothes and secretive mask, the way he had outclevered the cruel man who held a knife to his throat, outmatched the kind boy who had smiled at him, and outfought the strong girl who had put a blanket over his shoulders so he wouldn’t catch cold. Quietly, he asked, “Who are you?”

The man in black did not meet his eyes. “I am no one of consequence. But I am no one to be trifled with. Come, let’s go.” Sokka stumbled as he was jerked upright, rubbing his rubbed-raw wrists when they were let go. The man in black took a step before frowning back at him, grabbing his wrist again to pull him behind. “Let’s _go_.”

Sokka could do nothing but stumble along behind him, eventually finding his footing, but it took quite some time for the man in black to loosen his hold. It seemed as if he forgot he was holding onto him at all; when Sokka tried to tug his hand from the grip, the man jumped as if startled, released him as if shocked, and led him silently as if nothing had happened.

They had been moving along the mountain path for several hours before Sokka cleared his throat. “I will pay you a great deal of money to release me.”

The man in black glanced back at him, odd gold eyes unreadable. “You have a great deal of money to pay, then?”

“Well—not yet. But whatever you desire, I promise you will have it if you let me go.” The man in black shook his head with a laugh and anger made Sokka’s jaw tighten. “I’m not jesting!”

“I apologize,” said the man in black, with his familiar-unfamiliar raspy voice that reminded Sokka of smoke. “I know that you are not jesting, but I also know that what I desire, I could never have.”

“Release me and I will make sure you will!”

The man in black shook his head and they walked on.

Sokka walked behind his silent companion for several more long hours, with nothing but his own thoughts to take up space in his head. He found himself curious about the terrifying man in front of him - who was he? Why did he wear a mask? What did he look like underneath? What did he want from Sokka? Where was he taking him? How had he become so strong? How had he become so quick? How had he become so clever? What did he desire that he could not have?

They had been walking for seven hours, forty-seven minutes, and thirty-eight seconds. Of that, seven hours, forty-three minutes, and nineteen seconds had been silent. “What can’t you have?” Sokka asked, referring to something the man in black said seven hours, forty-four minutes, and fifty-five seconds ago.

The man in black seemed to pause mid-step for the smallest moment before he continued on, the only sign that he had heard anything at all. Sokka had just resigned himself to another seven hours, forty-seven minutes, and thirty-eight seconds of silence when the man in black spoke. “Love.”

“Love?”

“Love. I had love, and I lost it.”

“They died?”

“I left.”

Sokka felt that in his very soul, and carried the silence himself for a few more moments, his thoughts as thick and slow as molasses. He had sworn to never love again, and he had kept that promise, but the love he felt for Zuko was sealed in his heart, hammered in his soul, ingrained throughout his body so that every breath he took said “Zuko” against his teeth and every breath he gave sighed “Zuko” against his lips. 

“I lost love, too,” Sokka said, quiet and with more emotion than he had in his voice for the past three years.

They trekked on, likely aiming for the shore where there would likely be a ship where he would likely be held for a likely lofty ransom, no matter the impossible desires that the man in black had or the riches he did not want. Sokka’s thoughts continued to flow slowly, though they were devolving from molasses to syrup. All of his energy was spent swimming through the sugar-sweet, heavy-heady lake of his thoughts, so he did not see how the man in black was just as consumed by his own lightning bolt thoughts that struck within his mind. Before him, the man in black experienced several stages of grief in rapid succession. Denial was met by anger was met by bargaining was met by anger was met by bargaining was met by depression was met by denial was met by acceptance.

“How did you lose them?” the man in black asked, so quietly that Sokka questioned if he had said anything at all.

“He died,” Sokka said. “He was a sailor, working to support my family and to marry me. He was killed by a pirate.”

“Tragic,” the man in black said with a note of empathy. “You were to marry him?”

“Yes.”

“You wanted to marry him?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you marrying this prince?”

Sokka was taken aback enough to freeze in place, staring at the man in front of him with shock. “Pardon?” he asked, affronted.

“You wanted to marry this poor sailor, and yet you are to marry a prince. Why?”

Sokka gaped at him for a long moment before his face reddened in fury. “Why? Because my love is dead and my family is poor and the prince is the prince and I would have been unable to refuse.”

“So you loved a poor man and would have married him, despite the fact that he could only help your poor family become poorer and not the other way around?”

“I loved a poor man and he died!”

“So now you love this prince, who must be so unlike your poor, poor sailor—”

“He is unlike my poor, poor sailor and I do not love him!”

“You do not love him? You admit that you do not love your husband-to-be? That is cruelty.”

“Cruelty? That is life, sir, that is survival. For a man who spent the past several days surviving, you do not show it much honor.”

“To survive against death is honorable, to marry without love is not. To marry without love and to have a love that you wanted to marry - that is death.”

“It is death!” Sokka shouted, startling himself, the man in black, and the birds that flew from the trees of the deep raving behind them.

The man in black turned to look at Sokka full on, gold eyes glinting with emotions neither man could begin to comprehend. “Why do you inflict death upon yourself, then? Were you sorry when your sailor died? Did you feel sorrow strike your heart? Did you forget him, as soon as the Prince came to your door?”

“Do not mock my grief!” Sokka yelled, fiercely. “ _I died that day!_ ”

Sokka and the man in black fell silent, breathing hard and trying to parse out their own emotions before they could even tackle those of their counterpart. Their silent stare was interrupted by the sound of cannons in the not-so-distant distance that signalled the approach of Prince Ozai and his men. The man in black turned to look at the barely visible coast where Ozai’s ships were changing formation, and where his own ship was soon to be surrounded.

Sokka took advantage of this moment to shove his shoulders with what strength he had remaining. For a long moment, the man teetered on the ravine edge, giving Sokka had just enough time to feel his stomach turn over the thought of being the one to take someone’s life, before falling roughly down the steep hill, stumbling and rolling and tumbling over large rocks and broken sticks and hard earth. Sokka watched the man in black hit the bottom of the ravine with a sick feeling in gut, pretending that the absolute relief he felt when the man moved enough to show his survival was disappointment. 

“You can die for all I care!” Sokka yelled, starting towards the coast where his fiance would take him back to the cold castle walls.

The wind was a romantic. It was a gentle thing, though often fierce, and carried all of humanity’s collective hope, joy, sadness, sorrow, anger, madness, relief, and the rest on its gales and blows. The wind was just windy enough that day that it could have drowned the words, allowed Sokka to walk towards Ozai and his men, let him marry someone he did not love and who would never love him. As it was, the wind was a romantic, and it carried the man in black’s words directly to Sokka’s ear.

“ _As you wish,_ ” the wind breathed, gentle as a sleeping sigh.

“ _Zuko_ ,” Sokka said with horror, delight, and horror once more. “Zuko!”


	2. the middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ik i said i would update this tomorrow but im depressed and hits get me serotonin. the final chapter will likely be posted wed or thurs as it's still in progress but who knows, might fuck around and "write" or whatever.
> 
> once again: thank u for reading, love u dearly, hope u enjoy xoxo

Those golden eyes stared at him with watery trepidation, still largely hidden behind the black cloth of this mask. As carefully as he could with such shaky hands, Sokka untied it, fingers brushing the rough outline of his scar and the sharp line of his jaw. He felt barely able to breathe but he managed to say “ _Zuko_ ,” and Zuko was on him in an instant, kissing him with such gentle ferocity Sokka felt he might shatter. It would not do to shatter so soon after he had been glued back together; looking at this perfect man he had missed so dearly and who he loved so fiercely, Sokka felt like a broken bowl that had been lovingly and carefully reconstructed and sealed with gold.

“Sokka,” Zuko whispered, eyes the exact color of what held Sokka together. His arms encircled Sokka, lips pressed against Sokka’s own, and—

Pygmyest shrew to giantest whale, each of God’s living creatures are allowed three moments of genuine privacy, where neither being nor angel may intrude. These moments are reserved for the most precious, most tender, most passionate minutes of the creature’s life (often: these moments are the most precious, tender, passionate minutes of _two_ creatures' lives, as precious, tender, passionate things tended to happen when two creatures were deeply in love). This, naturally, was one of those moments.

The moment was over when the boom of a cannon sounded again, echoing through the ravine. “We must go,” said Zuko, standing and holding out his hand for Sokka to do the same.

“Go?” asked Sokka, his hand still in Zuko’s even after he was on his feet. “Go where? It would take thirty minutes, maybe forty-five to climb back to the top, and on our other side—”

Zuko glanced at the barely-traversable woods, so thickly grown that it seemed there would be little air to breathe with marshes so sodden there would be little ground to walk. “Yes, go. Through the Foggy Swamp.”

Sokka looked at him with loud disbelief. “The Foggy Swamp? We’ll never survive!”

“Nonsense,” Zuko scoffed, “you’re only saying that because no one ever has.”

With that, Zuko squeezed his hand and quickly led Sokka towards what he believed would be impending doom; Sokka did not think twice about following this perfect man, this beautiful man, his very own man, to their wetland grave. They moved, hand in hand, into the Foggy Swamp.

Prince Ozai, his men-at-arms, and chief advisor Count Zhao, stood at the very edge of the ravine, watching the pair break through the trees and enter the swamp. Zhao let out an incredulous laugh. “Did they truly go in?”

“They are even more foolish than I thought,” Ozai hummed in consideration. And Ozai had already thought they were quite foolish. “They will either live or die. If they die, I have no wish to join them. If they live, I will greet them on the other side. Come, men, let us go around.”

Zhao shook his head, tugging at his horse’s reins. “He must be very desperate, or very frightened, or very stupid, or very brave.”

“Three of the four,” Ozai said. He squinted after them for a long moment before turning, leading the fast riders to the other side of the swamp. No, he thought, there was no bravery in the man in black’s body. He had made sure of that.

Zuko made sure to stay a step ahead of Sokka, ready to take on any danger that emerged - and plenty of dangers did. He cut down poison-thorned branches before they could be touched, he avoided the visible fumes of toxic gasses that trapped themselves in the more open spaces, he listened for the quiet crackling that came before the deadly bursts of flame that struck up from the ground. Through each of these dangers, he kept Sokka from being cut, and from walking through gas, and from the fiery pillars, moving him with ease by strong lifting hands at Sokka’s waist. Sokka saw these dangers, and saw Zuko bravely protect him. 

(He did not see the way Zuko cast his gaze, wary and watchful, around the marshy thicket and mossy trees, for the fearsome R.O.U.S.es - Rat-Vipers of Unusual Size. These creatures were ruthless, quick to attack, quite angry, quite deadly, and sharp-toothed and sharp-clawed that made up for their lack of sharp-wittedness.)

“Why are we doing this?” Sokka asked. He had not yet let go of Zuko’s hand, and he did not intend to for the foreseeable future. They had lots of time that would have been spent hand-holding to make up for.

“Why are we surviving?” Zuko asked, thwacking a vine down with his dual dao, which were held together in his free hand.

“Well,” Sokka thought, considering his question. “Yes. Why are we surviving when it requires walking through something that is not survivable? What is through this swamp that is worth surviving for? I had you to survive for for the longest time, and then I did not have you but I survived anyway, and now I have found you and we can survive for each other and make a happy life here in the Foggy Swamp until we die in about two days. Yes. Why are we surviving?”

Zuko paused for just a moment to look at him with golden, squinting eyes. He deftly grabbed Sokka by his waist and lifted him, moving him three feet to the left, a burst of flame shooting up from where he had been standing not even a second earlier. Zuko’s eyes never left his. “We will reach the other side of the swamp and we will survive beyond that, much more than two days, for on the other side of the swamp is the mouth of Eel-Shark Bay and anchored in Eel-Shark bay is the great ship _Honor_ and the great ship _Honor_ is the great ship of the Blue Spirit and his dreaded pirates.”

“Blue Spirit and his dreaded pirates?” Sokka exclaimed, voice breaking in his shock. “The man who tore my heart from my chest? The man who left me with nothing? The man who _took your life_?”

“Well,” said Zuko, thoughtfully. “Obviously he did not take my life, as I am standing before you. But that is quite correct, that is our destination.”

“You know the man? You’re friendly with such a devil?”

“Well,” said Zuko, even more thoughtfully. “It goes a little beyond that. It’s a long story to tell and you know that I am not good at telling stories, but suffice to say: I am the Blue Spirit.”

Sokka stared at him as they carefully stepped over a pit of Silt Sand. “Impossible. The Blue Spirit has been terrorizing the seas for more than fifty years, longer than we have been alive. What’s more is that you left me just three years ago, I doubt that you have managed to secretly live forty-seven years before that!” Sokka felt a horrid pang of fear, considering the facts in front of him - had Zuko lied about everything? Had Zuko turned his back on him, knowing he would never look back? Had Zuko laughed at Sokka’s undying love, and pretended to die just to break his heart? He had to ask the simplest questions, praying that it would give him some amount of hope that Zuko had been true: “Were you even a sailor of the high seas? Was your ship even attacked? Were you even captured?”

In his shaky distraction, Sokka’s step faltered, and he felt like the world had dropped from under him as his legs sunk rapidly into a pit of Silt Sand. Zuko acted with great speed, grabbing Sokka’s torso and pulling him bodily with incredible strength, freeing him of the Silt Sand before he could sink further to his certain death. Sokka’s heart was racing, and he worried it would jump clean from his chest. He had feared the sand so as a child that he suffered nightmares about suffocating in his grasp until adolescence, and to have this horror nearly come true made it hard for Sokka to breathe. Zuko looked at him with such tender worry that Sokka, even in his doubts of Zuko’s truthfulness, had to kiss him. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Zuko whispered, holding onto him for a moment more as if making sure he would continue to stand on solid ground. With a deep breath, he trekked on, holding onto Sokka’s hand and leading him through the swamp once more. “As I was saying. I was truly a sailor on the _Queen’s Heart_ and the _Queen’s Heart_ was truly attacked and I was truly captured and brought on board the great ship _Honor_ , and I knelt in front of the Blue Spirit himself.”

“But the Blue Spirit leaves no survivors.”

“He does not.”

“But the Blue Spirit didn’t kill you.”

“He did not.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked him not to.” Seeing Sokka’s incredulous glance, he continued. “I said to him, ‘Please do not kill me’ as he lifted his sword to slice my throat, and I believe it was the ‘please’ that caught his attention. People often beg for their lives, or sob or cry or any number of sorry things, but I only said ‘please’ and he asked why he should listen to me and my ‘please’. So I told him the truth. I was earning money to send to the family that was practically my own and saving to prove that I could provide for the most beautiful man in the world that I hoped to make my husband. He said that he doubted the man—you, to be clear—was as beautiful as all that, and he raised his sword to my neck again and sliced just enough to draw blood before I could speak again. But I did speak, and I told him that you _were_ as beautiful as all that, with the smoothest tawny skin and the softest chestnut hair and the most vivid eyes the color of the deepest ocean on the sunniest day. I told him that you had the most strong arms and the most talented fingers and the most heavenly thighs with the most precious freckle behind your knee. I told him that you were the most beautiful man and that you were perfect in all ways, and that included your forehead and your ears and your teeth and your shoulders and back and waist and ankles and I told him that most beautiful of all was your smile in the morning when we woke up together with our cheeks on the same pillow and the same ray of sun upon our hair and the same thought of ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’ racing through our minds at the same time. I told him the truth, and he let me live.”

Zuko cleaved another branch from their path, moved Sokka away from an incoming flame, kept them quite thoroughly away from a pit of Silt Sand, glanced around for R.O.U.S.es, and continued on as if it took no effort at all. “He let me live because he was convinced of my love for you, but there were, of course, some worries on his end. As you said, the Blue Spirit leaves no survivors, and that is a large part of why he and his dreaded pirates are so very feared. ‘I have to tell you, Zuko,’ he said - oh, at some point I had told him my name but I cannot quite remember exactly where so I did not say - ‘I have to tell you, Zuko. I am so genuinely sorry about this, but I do not leave survivors and if I make an exception for you, word will get around that I have begun to leave survivors and that I am beginning to grow soft and that I am not to be quite so feared as I once was, and that will simply not do. Being quite so feared as I am cuts down the workload nearly in half, you see, and if I were not quite so feared, I would have to work hard to achieve the same level of piracy by capturing more and capsizing more and plundering more and I have grown accustomed to a career of capturing and capsizing and plundering less than many other captains and their dreaded pirates.’ I told him that I would not say a word to anyone, even my most dearly beloved, but when he did not look sufficiently convinced, I said ‘If you let me live, I will be your loyal servant for five full years, and if I ever once complain or cause you anger or irritation or vexation, you may keelhaul me and I will be sliced and cut and drowned with praises of your dreadedness and honorability on my lips.’’ He was convinced enough after that, and he told me: ‘Zuko, go below. I will most likely kill you in the morning.’

Zuko stopped talking, as he had spotted a lone R.O.U.S. walking quietly beside them, hidden by the trees. Sokka did not notice, but he looked anxiously at Zuko. For someone who professed to be a horrible storyteller, he had a way of pushing Sokka to excitement and eagerness for more. “And then?”

“And then,” Zuko continued, quieter than before, walking with more deliberate and cautious steps, hoping that the creature would be convinced that they were not as delicious a dinner as it had thought. “You know the type of man I am, yes? I’m a hard worker, and persistent, and so I worked hard and I persisted and I learned every single thing I could about being a pirate. I worked twenty-one hours a day without complaint, I swept and swabbed, I loaded and lit, I served and slaved, and every evening the Blue Spirit would say to me, ‘Good work today, Zuko. Sleep well. I will most likely kill you in the morning.’”

“But he did not kill you in the morning,” Sokka said. Zuko shook his head slowly. The R.O.U.S. was still following, and it was growing more curious.

“He did not kill me in the morning. In fact, after six months of hard work and learning to pillage and plunder and pirate, he told me ‘Zuko, I believe I will not kill you at all’ and we became quite good friends after that. After a year he told me, ‘Zuko, I most certainly will not kill you, and in fact, I would like to make you my second-in-command.’ I told him, ‘Thank you, sir, but I could never be a pirate.’ And he told me, ‘You want to get back to the most beautiful man of yours, yes? You need money to do so and this is quite a profitable industry. A year or two of piracy and you will be quite rich and back to your family you will go.’ I remained skeptical, and I must have looked it, because he continued and said, ‘I am going to retire soon, Zuko, and the _Honor_ will then be yours, should you want her. Lead the next capture and see how you like it.’”

There was another R.O.U.S. flanking them from the other side now, and Sokka saw them both. “Zuko—” he whispered, gripping his arm.

“I’m watching them,” he assured. “Would you like me to finish? It might take your mind off it.”

Sokka straightened bravely and nodded. “You led the next capture.”

“I led the next capture,” Zuko agreed. “It was a loaded ship, practically gilded, headed to the coffers of the Omashu king. They were awfully terrified when they saw us, of course, the _Honor_ is the most infamousest ship with the blackest sails and she had the most fearsomest pirates glowering at them over the blackest sides. I boarded first, and met the captain with my dao held at the ready. ‘Who are you?’ he asked, as I did not wear the mask of the Blue Spirit that was known so well. It was a mask purely for pirating, of course. It’s known well but it’s quite cumbersome, so I was wearing just the cloth mask that you have seen. ‘I am Zuko,’ I answered. ‘Never heard of you,’ he replied, and then we went at it, and it was a complete disaster. I was flustered and I did everything wrong and as the men took my lead _they_ did everything wrong and soon we had to retreat and watch their rich ship sail away without a gold piece in anyone’s pocket. I believed I was right after that, that I could never be a pirate because I was nowhere near as fearsome as my master, and it could hardly be a profitable business when no one would surrender or even die easily. When the Blue Spirit called me to his cabin I was convinced he had changed his mind and would kill me after all, and I really would have gone out with his praises on my tongue. But he said ‘Zuko, sit down,’ and I did, and he said ‘I am going to tell you the uttermost secret that you must guard close to your chest, as close as you guard your most beautiful man. I am not the Blue Spirit.’”

“What?” Sokka gasped, though he saw a third R.O.U.S. creep slowly behind them.

“That is what I said!” said Zuko. “I said ‘What?’ and he said ‘I am not the Blue Spirit. My name is Jinpa. I inherited the title and the _Honor_ from the previous Blue Spirit, who was named Jeong Jeong. He inherited it from the previous previous Blue Spirit, who was named Pakku, who inherited it from the previous previous previous Blue Spirit, who was the original, who was named Bumi. He is still named Bumi, in fact, and lives rich as a king on Kyoshi Island. But I inherited the title and the _Honor_ just as you will inherit it from me, and this is how the Blue Spirit has sailed for such a long, successful fifty years, and how he will sail for a long, successful fifty more.’”

A fourth R.O.U.S. joined the one behind them, and Zuko squeezed Sokka’s hand in reassurance as he continued. “So a few months later, when the Blue Spirit who was Jinpa decided to retire, we sailed the _Honor_ to port, changed crews entirely, and introduced Jinpa as my second-in-command and myself as the Blue Spirit. Once we knew that the crew for sure believed that I was the Blue Spirit and once Jinpa was confident that I could maintain the Blue Spirit’s reputation, Jinpa left off, and I believe he is now living rich with the original Blue Spirit on Kyoshi. So you see—you were once a poor farmer and I was once a poorer farm boy, and now you are almost a King and I am an uncontested King of the seas, so there is nothing that we cannot do, including surviving the Foggy Swamp. And what’s more, you were once described as an ‘adequate enough’ swordsman and I am a master of the dual dao, and even five R.O.U.S.es cannot survive our blades.”

Sokka paled and snapped his head to look around, and the creatures growled at the sudden movement. “There are five now?” There were five now. “And adequate swordsman or not, I’m practically out of practice and I have no sword!”

Zuko nodded, and parted his dao. “You’re right. You take one blade, and I will keep the other. I am more than a master of the dual dao, but I am still a master with just one.”

Sokka took the blade and felt that it was oddly romantic. The dual dao was dual, two parts of a whole, working as one, a beautiful couple that, when wielded well, acted as a singularly perfect weapon. He felt as if Zuko was entrusting him with a part of his soul. He felt this even more strongly when he realized that these were the same swords as the ones Zuko used to keep between the wall and his bed in his little hovel all those years ago. Even when Zuko could undoubtedly afford, or pillage, fancier weapons, he chose to keep this familiar piece of home. Sokka gripped the well-loved hilt and nodded at him. “Some people are meant to never die in the Foggy Swamp,” he said confidently.

“Oh yes?” asked Zuko, with a small quirk of his lips.

“Oh yes,” said Sokka. “We will not die here because we are together, and we are terribly in love.”

Zuko’s small smile turned into a delighted grin, and that is when the R.O.U.S. pounced. 

The rat-viper was, titularly, of unusual size, and its sheer weight forced Zuko to the ground. Zuko grunted as it sank its razor-sharp teeth into his shoulder, biting through flesh with ease. Zuko slashed at it with his single blade and it released him with a pained growl, but leapt towards him again as Zuko quickly stood and regained his balance. Two more of the creatures ran towards him. Zuko made quick work with the first, landing a critical hit, and began to fight the others in earnest, using his non-dominant left hand to wield as his right shoulder was quite painfully bleeding.

Sokka froze for only one moment before jumping into action, taking on the other two rat-vipers by using moves that he had only used on a wood-and-hay practice dummy for the past few years. Luckily, Sokka _was_ an adequate swordsman, and enjoyed the thrill of the art beyond that. The R.O.U.S.es leapt and bit and scratched but Sokka and Zuko fought and slashed and lunged, eventually ending up with their backs against one another in unified protection as they took on two each, with one half of the same sword.

It was perhaps a dozen minutes later or perhaps just one point two when the last R.O.U.S. fell onto the opening of a flame pillar, and the pillar erupted a split second afterwards. “Hurry,” said Zuko, panting heavily, holding his injured shoulder with the opposite hand but grabbing Sokka’s hand with the other. “It smells of cooked meat and that will no doubt attract more. We’re nearly to the edge, we must move fast.”

They ran, taking care to avoid vines and pits and clouds of gas but moving much quicker than before. It was not very long til they could see the glorious edge of the swamp, sunlight shining through the widening gaps between trees, no marsh but green grass ahead. They burst through in one joyful breath. It would have been two joyful breaths, likely ten or more, but they froze at the sight of fifty men, most on horseback, the intimidating figure of Lord Zhao, and the imposing, horrible, and smug Prince Ozai at the very forefront.

“I accept your surrender,” he said, smiling. Even his teeth seemed cruel.

Sokka squeezed Zuko’s hand, too disappointed at this horrible welcome party to notice the way that Zuko had tensed, shaking just slightly more than was imperceptible, heart thumping like a mortally frightened rabbit.

“No one is surrendering,” Zuko said. His bonfire voice held an unfamiliar twang.

Prince Ozai laughed. “Don’t be a fool, boy.”

“I am not being a fool,” Zuko countered, quiet and odd. “Our escape awaits, and even should we not escape, we have become quite accustomed to the Foggy Swamp. We know where all the dangers lie, unlike your men, and they will be too frightened to follow us.”

It was then that Zhao gestured and soldiers entered the swamp just enough to surround the pair. The soldiers, moving under the threat of a painful death for desertion should they not do so, were incredibly nervous but they were also incredibly impossible to break through. Ozai looked back at the mouth of Eel-Shark Bay where his armada was beginning to corner the _Honor,_ and the _Honor,_ unable to do anything else, was quickly sailing away to safety. There was no escape now, through the swamp or through the sea.

“You will surrender or you will die,” Ozai said, cool and calm.

“I will die.” Zuko barked out.

 _“Surrender!”_ the Prince shouted.

 _“Death first!”_ Zuko roared.

“Will you swear not to hurt him?” Sokka inserted, loud enough to give them all pause.

“What?” said Ozai.

“What?” said Zuko.

“If we surrender without struggle, if I go with you of my own free will, do you _swear_ to not hurt this man?” Sokka stared at the prince, eyes serious and jaw set.

Prince Ozai gave him a saccharine smile that, to all but Sokka, rang of false promises. “I swear on the graves of my soon-to-be-dead father, my already-dead mother, and dear, dear late wife that I will not hurt this man.”

Zuko knew then that his life was soon to be over, for he knew that his late mother was anything but dear to Ozai, much less _dear, dear._ He impulsively shoved the other half of his dual dao into Sokka’s hand, hoping he would be able to remember him a year from now should he happen to look at the blades. Sokka took it without question, uniting the weapon and making it whole. Zuko could not take his eyes off Sokka, who was more than one of the three most beautiful men in the world, but the only one person that Zuko had ever loved.

“We have only just found each other,” he said, eyes flickering over Sokka’s face as if to memorize it, though he already had, from the moment he first laid eyes on it. “You would leave me so soon?”

“You left me first,” Sokka reminded him gently. His heart was breaking all over again, and no amount of gold could meld it back together this time. “If it means you will live, and you will be free, I will leave you and I will still love you.”

Zuko knew, but did not say, that Ozai had not sworn he would live, and had most certainly not sworn he would be free. “I will love you always,” he said, so quiet and so honest and so sorrowful that it could barely be said. “For the rest of my life and the rest of my death and the rest of eternity, I will love you.”

Sokka nodded, swallowed, and turned away. Ozai gestured to one of the uniformed captains with a passive wave of his hand, and he scooped Sokka up onto his steed and rode away, towards Caldera and away, so very away, from Zuko.

Prince Ozai looked at Zuko with sadistic pleasure, taking particular joy in the scar on his face. “Lord Zhao, would you be so kind as to take my dear son to the Boiling Rock?”

Zhao laughed with cruel delight. “I would love nothing more, Your Highness.” The soldiers behind Zuko tied him thoroughly with coarse rope at the wrists, elbows, ankles and knees. Zhao threw him roughly onto the back of his horse, paying mind to make it as jostling a ride as possible. 

Before Zhao could ride off, Ozai dismounted and went to Zuko, grabbing his chin and jerking his head up, forcing him to meet his eyes. “I spared you before. I could have killed you, but I was kind, and I merely taught you a lesson. It is such a shame to see that it did not stick. I should not be surprised, of course, as you were such a disappointment even as an infant that it was only your mother’s pathetic begging that kept you from being drowned at birth, but still.” Ozai clicked his tongue, gripped Zuko’s jaw tight, and let go so his head dropped against the horse’s flank. “Pathetic. I spared you before, and I will not spare you again.”

Zhao grinned as he rode hard, Zuko thumping against the steed helplessly. “You know,” said Zuko, unable to take the ride to his death silently, “I last saw you when I was thirteen, ten years ago. You were my father’s chief advisor then, and you are my father’s chief advisor still. Strange, I remember you being much more ambitious.”

Zuko grinned when Zhao looked at him with an unpleasant scowl. “I’m in charge of your _care_ , boy. I’d shut my mouth if I were you.”

“I am not you,” said Zuko. As Zhao unsheathed his sword to slam the butt against Zuko’s head, he could not help but remark, “You’re wearing an odd necklace,” and then he was knocked cold.

Around this time, Aang the swordsman regained his own consciousness. He sat up, rubbing his aching head, which was aching doubly from the hit that had put him to temporary bed and from the shock of defeat. He had never been beat quite so badly before, nor had he fought such a wonderful opponent. An opponent who did not slay him, but instead left him resting on a clear patch of grass that had likely been sunny before the sun had set.

He had been unconscious for just over thirteen hours (for Zuko had pursued Toph for an hour after their duel, then pursued Fong for an hour after that, then pursued freedom with Sokka across the Pass for eight hours, then pursued freedom with Sokka through the Foggy Swamp for three hours, then was met by unfortunate surrender a mere four minutes and thirty-eight seconds after they had exited), and was incredibly disoriented. He stood on shaky legs that grew a little steadier as he stretched them out and looked around, trying to figure out where to go from there.

The beginning, he decided, was the best place to start. Of course, he had to decide _which_ beginning to start from. From the most recent beginning, where they took the prince from Caldera? No, that would be of no use. From the most middle beginning, after Fong had found Toph and then Fong and Toph found Aang in Omashu? No, that was of no more use than the last. From one of the earliest beginnings, then, where Aang had lost his father years before, lost his childhood years during, and lost his hope years after. To Ba Sing Se it was.

One hour later, Aang stumbled upon something slightly scary but mostly odd. One of the world’s twenty strongest people lay near the dusty path, very still but breathing. Aang ran over and knelt by her side, shouting, “Toph!”

Toph’s unseeing eyes shot open and she shot an extremely well-aimed punch to Aang’s gut.

“Oh,” Aang groaned, holding his stomach and falling to the ground beside her in pain. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

Toph scratched her head before patting his knee. “Don’t sneak up on me like that. I was asleep.” She stretched her arms above her head, bones cracking pleasantly as she did so. “Glad you’re not dead. Not that I thought you would be. But that guy sure beat you.”

“He sure did,” Aang agreed, still aching quite badly. “He beat you, too.”

“Yes,” Toph sniffed and rubbed her nose. “What do we do now?”

“I was heading to Ba Sing Se.”

Toph nodded in appreciation. “Ba Sing Se. That’s a beginning that’s a good place to start. Maybe Fong will show up there. You know, to find us.”

They both feared abandonment, and they both felt in their gut (Aang’s aching, Toph’s not) that they had been in some way or another. “Maybe. Ready to go?”

Toph stood and held out her hand to help Aang up, jerking him quickly once he grabbed to hear his “oof!” just for fun. They started towards Ba Sing Se, which happened to be along the path they intended to take on this journey, and an hour later, they found Fong.

“Oh,” Aang said, as soon as he spotted the body near the edge of the ravine.

He had stopped, so Toph stopped beside him. “Oh?” she asked.

“He’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?”

“Fong’s dead.”

“Fong’s dead?”

Aang’s silence confirmed it. They stood there, silent and perplexed for a long moment, before Aang spoke. “The man in black beat him?”

“The man in pursuit beat him,” Toph agreed. “What do we do now?”

They stood in silence again for another long moment, considering. “Ba Sing Se is still a good place to start, I think. There’s always work there. It’s just usually dirty work.”

Toph shrugged. “I’d say kidnapping with the intent to kill is pretty dirty work, I bet we can find some stuff a little cleaner than that.”

“Ba Sing Se?” Aang asked.

“Ba Sing Se,” Toph confirmed.

Some distance away, Zuko unwelcomely regained consciousness extremely bruised with an aching shoulder and tightly bound limbs - it would appear that he was strapped to a flat table by several thick leather straps. He tried to wriggle but there was no give; in fact, the movement made the edges cut into him a little more, enough to make him stop wriggling almost immediately. He was clearly underground, surrounded by rough rock walls, rough rock floor, and rough rock ceiling. The chamber was barely lit with a few flickering candles and when Zuko turned his head first to the right and then to the left, he saw no entrance, no exit, and no one.

He knew exactly where he was: a cellar deep under the Caldera palace that was called the Boiling Rock. His father had brought him once when he was a child. He was a small boy, baby fat filling out round cheeks, gold eyes that were bright with innocence, sweet and kind and desperate for his father’s love. He obeyed his father unfailingly (though he often faltered) in the hopes that he would earn it. It came at a steep price, though, one Zuko could never quite figure out. He felt such joy that day; it was his tenth birthday, and his father had said he was at an age to start becoming a man (he had also said he should have started becoming a man at six, but Zuko latched onto the positive whenever he could). At an hour that would usually find him asleep, Ozai took him to the cellars, through the dungeons, down to the bottomest pit that made Zuko’s stomach drop further just looking at it.

It would seem that part of becoming a man was watching a man die for the first time. It took hours, it was slow and horrible and loud and then so quiet, and Zuko was not allowed to look away. The one time he tried, Ozai had grabbed his hair and forced him to look and Zuko met the tortured man’s eyes right as another knife was driven into his side. Even as faded as they were, Zuko saw some amount of pity in them. A tortured man felt pity for _Zuko._ It was an awful thought. 

Every single moment of that horrible night was carved into his brain; he knew it was all he would be able to see every time he closed his eyes. The knowledge that this nightmare would live within him made Zuko retch as soon as they reached the surface. Ozai frowned, and Zuko paid for his perceived insolence with the worst beating he had ever had (up to that point, at least. Worse would come later). He wondered, now, if Azula had been made a woman through the same horrible, horrible experience. He wondered, sickened, if Azula had reacted as he had or if she had been Ozai’s little twin, eyes bright with pleasure and eagerness for suffering.

So Zuko found himself bound in his own nightmares, in the place of the dying man who had managed to look at him with pity. He wondered how soon he would die. He decided, with a horrible, sinking sorrow, that it would be quite a while. Zuko was a strong man, we know this. He was a clever man, we know this. He was a brave man, we know this. He was resilient, could suffer graciously, and, with any amount of fortune, he could not be broken.

Zuko was fortunate to be alive, we know this.

But they broke him anyway.

The date of Prince Ozai and prince consort Sokka’s wedding remained unchanged. The glorious five-hundredth anniversary of the great nation of Caldera did not come every day, regardless of any kidnappings, deaths, and loves found then lost that had led to that point. It was one month and two weeks after that great ordeal, and one month and two weeks until the wedding, when Sokka knocked upon the door of Ozai’s study. It took a moment for it to be answered by one of Ozai’s personal servants because it was an unspoken precedent that the Prince took no visitors in his study, and Ozai did not bother to look up until Sokka pointedly cleared his throat.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, stopping at Ozai’s quiet scoff of disbelief. Sokka started once more. “It comes to this. That day, when we stood just outside the Foggy Swamp, I made the worst mistake of my life. I love Zuko. I always have, it seems, and it seems I always will. When you said that we must surrender or die, and I chose surrender, I should have chosen die and have been killed by Zuko’s side. I should have died then, and I would like to inform you that if I marry you in forty-five days, I will not live to see a forty-sixth.”

Ozai sat back and looked at him with some amount of amusement. “You plan on dying, my perfect Prince?” The way Ozai said _perfect_ was so different from the way Zuko said _perfect_ that there were thirteen entire universes between the words.

Sokka nodded solemnly. “Yes. If we marry, then I will die.”

Ozai looked at him with such confusing sympathy. Sokka, beautiful and perfect, was sometimes beautifully and perfectly naive. “My darling.” He had taken to pet names over the last month and a half. There was always something hateful to it on Ozai’s tongue, but Sokka was not in a position to object. “I would rather die myself than keep you from the one you so truly love.”

Sokka blinked in surprise. “Oh. So it’s settled. The wedding is off.”

“However,” Ozai drew out the word, and Sokka quieted. Ozai cocked his head to the side as if thinking very deeply. “There is one thing. Have you considered that he may not love you anymore?”  
“Pardon?” Sokka furrowed his brows, having never doubted Zuko’s love before, except for one small moment in the Foggy Swamp when he thought maybe Zuko had lied about everything in the world. “Of course he loves me.”

Ozai hummed and tapped his chin. “You did leave him, you know.”

“He left me first and I still love him.”

“Yes, of course. But you did leave him. Did you not feel so dreadfully alone, my beautiful thing? Did you not believe him dead? But he knows you are alive and left him by choice. Should we have loved each other, and you had left me in such a way, I would be hard-pressed to love you still.” Ozai leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “And consider this, dearest. He has not come for you.”

That struck Sokka. He had not considered this before. Zuko _hadn’t_ come for him. That did not mean he wouldn’t, necessarily, but he had not yet, and that had to mean something. He swallowed, and looked at the moose-lion-skin rug beneath his feet. “He may not have come for me, but he still loves me.”

Ozai let out a quiet amused huff through his nose and drew a blank piece of parchment from a stack on his desk. “Come, sit.” Sokka did, perching tentatively on the intentionally uncomfortable chair. “You made a promise to me, little pet. A promise to wed is not something to be taken lightly.” He held a hand up to halt Sokka’s protest before it began. “But as I said, I would never stand in the way of such pure love. You do not know for certain if he still loves you, even if you are convinced of it. So do this: write him, I will ensure he receives your letter, and if he writes that he loves you back, then we shall not marry. If he does not write back, or if he writes back to say he does not love you, then we shall.”

Sokka considered the parchment and brush that Ozai had placed in front of him. “If we marry, I really shall kill myself.”

“If you are so convinced that your Zuko loves you, then you need not fret,” Ozai smiled benevolently, and watched as Sokka picked up the quill and penned a heartfelt letter in careful script. He always said _‘Zuko’_ in a way that Sokka could never quite parse out, but now was not the time to try.

Once his letter was finished, and read and reread, Sokka folded it carefully and handed it to Ozai. “You swear that he’ll receive it?”

“I swear.”

Sokka nodded and took his leave. Ozai’s smile grew into something savage and genuine as he watched Sokka retreat. He did not often visit his honored guest, but a visit was in order that night. He worked for another few hours before brushing past bowing servants and soldiers as he went towards his entertainment, Sokka’s loving letter in hand. As he traveled through the castle, across the grounds, into the cellars, through the dungeons, and down to the bottomest pit, Ozai could not help his excitement. He always loved to see Lord Zhao’s work - the man was certainly a credit to his expertise - but this current project was of particular interest. It is not every day that one could see a banished, traitorous son finally punished for his cowardice and betrayal.

Ozai was allowed entrance to the Boiling Rock after he rapped out a series of knocks onto a standing sentry’s chest. The man was blind, deaf, mute, and had spent the past ten years of his life guarding this door, and would likely die guarding it in ten more. He opened it with the practiced ease of someone who had barely known anything else. Who else could be trusted with such a precious secret other than one who could never hope to reveal it? Ozai lit the candles as he entered the Boiling Rock, making his way slowly around the room as he did so, heels sounding loud against the floor, staying out of Zuko’s sight until he stood directly in front of him, lighting the last candle. A soon-to-be King was allowed his dramatics.

Ozai smiled as he looked at Zuko, alone.

For lack of better words, Zuko was almost destroyed. Over the past month and some, he had been cut deeply and sewn back together, bones broken and splinted to heal, nearly drowned and left to breathe, starved and fed, kept awake til he was on the brink of insanity before being left in silent isolation until he reached the brink again. It was on this brink that Ozai found him. Lord Zhao had been sent on an ambassadorial trip that was to last only five days, but that was five days that Zuko was left in a windowless pit without food or drink and only the squeak of rats and maddening drip of distant water to keep him company.

“Hello, my son,” Ozai said.

Zuko looked at his father with a fire that Ozai found himself _thrilled_ to smother.

He wasn’t surprised that Zuko didn’t reply; the only noise he had heard this waste of a child make was pathetic, guttural screams after he could no longer hold them back. “I had quite the discussion with my darling fiance today,” he said, looking with distracted curiosity at Zhao’s table of tools. He did not need to see his son’s face to know he had gotten his attention. Ozai rarely spoke of Sokka during these visits; he thought that it was a much sweeter torture for Zuko to know nothing. To hear a rare word about his beloved - how could he do anything but listen?

Ozai walked the room again in silence, heels clicking slow and ominous as he made the round. He stopped behind him, far enough that Zuko was unable to see him but close enough that Ozai could see his emotions flash across his face. Yet another thing Ozai had not been able to beat out of him. The boy was too much like his mother.

“He loves you, you know.” Zuko’s breath seemed to catch in his throat in a sour way at Ozai’s words, so he continued on. “In fact, he’s threatened to kill himself if you don’t come to him - and on our wedding night, no less! He loves you, of course, but I have convinced him that you do not love him.” Zuko swallowed and his jaw seemed to shake for a moment before he got himself under control. Ozai smiled. Zhao had burned Zuko’s hands during Ozai’s last visit; not too badly, of course, they were only dipped in oil and held over flame until they began to boil pleasantly. This was much more fun. “Yes, it’s terribly sad. I suggested that he write to you today, to let you know how his life will end should you not reply. Should you reply and say that you love him, then he will not marry me and he will not kill himself. But you cannot reply and say that you love him, of course, so he will marry me but he will not kill himself because I am planning to kill him.”

Zuko looked close to panicking, and Ozai’s smile grew even more pleased. He moved to the side of the flat wooden table that was Zuko was strapped to, peering over his emotive face. It was a curious thing, really. Though his daughter looked much more like Ozai than his son, Zuko carried elements of his father, and it was as if Ozai could see himself, were he weak. Ozai was not hesitant to admit that this was a large part of why he hated his only son. Ozai was not weak, and Zuko was not Ozai. “You knew this, yes? Of course you did. I should have known better than to hire a General from Ba Sing Se to do such delicate work as kidnapping and framing his own nation for murder.” Ozai sighed and pulled the folded parchment from the pocket of his robes. “I am not here to complain about dead men. I swore to my dearest darling that I would ensure you received his letter, and I am here to fulfil that promise.”

Ozai unfolded the letter and cleared his throat, and read. “Dear Zuko, the love of my life, the light in my soul, the warmth of my heart, the man I love first and foremost. I hope you are doing quite well. I am not. I am here in the castle that I hate with people that I loathe preparing to do something that I greatly dread. I do not wish to marry the prince. How could I, when I know you are alive and love me as well? However—I need to know, my Zuko, _do_ you love me? I know you do but I also do not know. I left you, this time, and it was so much differenter than when you left me, and it was the worst decision that I have ever made, leaving you. When they said surrender or die and I said surrender I wish that I had said die and I wish I would have died holding your hand and knowing that you love me. My love, my soul, my heart, my Zuko, I want you to tell me the truth, and I will tell you my truth, as well. If you love me, say so, if you do not love me, say so, or do not say anything and it will mean the same thing. If you love me, then I will not marry Prince Ozai, because I would rather die than betray you once more. If you do not love me, then I will marry Prince Ozai, but as I would rather die than betray you then I will surely die by my own hand. I will be married on the five-hundredth anniversary of Caldera, and so that is the deadline for your love or your unlove. Love or unlove, dear Zuko, I love you. I am dearly in love with you, I am madly in love with you, I am devotedly in love with you, and I love you. Please, Zuko, write to me. I hope that you love me. I love you even if you do not. I love you. I love you. I love you. Sokka.”

Ozai scoffed the last word, like his fiance’s own name was pathetic in itself. “You’ve heard his letter, then. I have kept my word. Sokka will receive no reply and will think you do not love him and will marry me and then he will die.” Zuko was shaking now, unable to hold himself still, eyes tightly closed in an effort to quell his tears. Ozai put the letter next to the tools, so Zuko might see some of the words if he tried hard enough. 

He could not resist, and placed his hand over his son’s ugly scar, and Zuko’s entire body tried to flinch away, just to be pinned still by the tight straps. Ozai allowed himself a grin. Though he had been burned by a merciless torch, it was if Ozai had made the mark with his own hand. Such a beautiful lesson for an ungrateful son.

Zuko made no sound, but Ozai was satisfied with the results. He slowly snuffed out each candle, plunging his son into darkness, and closed the door behind him. As soon as he left the room, Zuko began to sob, loud and desperate and full of tortured sorrow. Ozai sighed to himself, pleased. “It’s a shame you can’t hear this,” he muttered to the sentry, as he left the bottomest pit, went through the dungeons, climbed up from the cellars, and set off towards the castle once he reached solid ground. 

One may hope that Ozai was attacked, perhaps, on his way to the castle walls, or that he fell on steep stairs, or choked on a glass of wine, or suffered from horrible nightmares that cause him to reconsider his ethics and morals, but that would never be the case. Ozai was a horrible man, and he walked to the castle, climbed up steep stairs, drank a glass of wine, and slept peacefully with no dreams at all.


	3. the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sup my dudes, i said i'd post this thursday but i am not doing that! i'm not super confident about this boy but i do feel like i couldn't have done it any other way so here u go! without a doubt i'll be posting some self-indulgent nonsense later on so sub to the series if you'd like to read my bullshit
> 
> again: thank u for reading, really and truly. it has been a long 2 days and u have been providing me with the good vibes and sweet comments i need. hope you enjoy, let me know what u think, love u all xoxoxoxoxo

One week later, thirty-eight days until the wedding, Sokka visited Ozai’s study again. “Has Zuko replied?”

“He has not, my dear,” Ozai responded.

Two weeks later, twenty-four days until the wedding, Sokka visited Ozai’s study once again. “Has Zuko replied?”

“He has not, my pet,” Ozai responded.

Three weeks later and one day later, two days until the wedding, Sokka visited Ozai’s study once again. “Has Zuko replied?”

“He has not, my darling,” Ozai responded.

As he did every week, Sokka left the study feeling dejected, hopeless soul hurting, hopeful soul praying. He walked through the halls as he always did, ignored the guards as he always did, turned the corners as he always did, and bumped his shoulder into someone as he never did. Sokka looked up with a start and stumbled back with a startle. In front of him was a young woman, lovely, beautiful, sharp as a dagger. She tilted her head, quirked her brow, and smirked with perfect lips. She carried herself differently but her look and her eyes and her aura - ‘Ozai?’ his brain asked. ‘No,’ replied his heart. _‘Zuko’._

“Why, hello,” she said, looking him over curiously. “You must be my father-to-be.”

“I—” Sokka took a step back, watching her as an antelope watches a lion. “You’re Azula.”

Azula smiled, confirming. She had been away at some royal finishing school for the last two years, having departed shortly before Sokka had arrived. At first he had felt like he had lost out on company, but if the whispers of servants and lords alike were anything to go by, her company was not such he would like to have kept it. Azula was Ozai’s daughter and his only heir, set to become the crown princess once her father took the throne. It was likely because Azula existed that Ozai had demanded to marry Sokka instead of Katara. He needed no children, he needed only to comply with one of the nation’s old customs: one could not be crowned without a spouse by one’s side. A ruler could _rule_ without a spouse, sure - Azulon had been doing so for quite some years after the death of his near-unknown wife, as his father Sozin had done for quite some years before him. But a fortuitous marriage of a King and Queen (or King and King or Queen and Queen, though that was currently without precedent) was symbolic of a fortuitous kingdom, and that is why Ozai had taken Sokka’s hand.

At any rate, Princess Azula, daughter of Prince Ozai and Princess Ursa, future Crown Princess of Caldera, soon-to-be step-daughter of Sokka of the Southern Bend, stood in front of him now.

“It’s—nice to meet you?” Sokka said finally, squinting at her a little. For someone so much shorter than himself, Azula was awfully intimidating.

“Charmed,” she replied, and abruptly turned on her heel. “Come.”

Sokka swallowed thickly. Azula seemed even fiercer than her father, but she was—odd. Oddly familiar, oddly strange, oddly out of place. It didn’t make sense. She moved through the castle halls with an ease that indicated deep familiarity, expectation, and belonging; her clothing made of the same royal red and golds that adorned Ozai; her coloring was the same as Ozai and lords and ladies of the country, with jet black hair and smooth pale skin and eyes that fell along the spectrum of fire from volcanic ash to kindled amber (though, ‘like Ozai,’ said his brain, ‘like Zuko,’ said his heart, Azula’s eyes were royal, bright, intense, and could both start wars and win them). And yet, even as she made him tense and glance over his shoulder, he felt his gut tug at him to follow her, so he did.

Azula led him to a room deep in the castle that appeared to be used for storage, with dusty crates and sheet-covered furniture filling the room. She chose this location beforehand, it would seem, and had set up two chairs at a little table, and had a tray of tea and sweets arranged on top. She gestured at one of the chairs, sitting on the other and crossing her legs at the knee too deliberately to be casual. She poured the tea for them both, took a sip of her own, and looked at him expectantly. 

Sokka had no idea what words she wanted him to say, so he remained silent.

“So, father dearest—” she started.

Sokka groaned, unable to stop himself. “Please don’t say that.”

She huffed out a little laugh, pleased. “Terribly sorry, step-papa. I thought you might have questions to ask, about why I was looking for you, why I brought you here, why we are in a grimy room in some tower no one comes in—”

“Okay,” Sokka said, “I’ll ask. Why were you looking for me? Why did you bring me here? Why did you bring me to a room far from my own where walls and walls and walls would keep anyone from hearing me scream?”

Azula laughed like he had told a wonderful joke. “Aren’t you a suspicious one? I’m not planning on killing you, Sokka. You haven’t earned that much of my attention yet. I brought you here because you can do something that I cannot.”

“And what is that?”

“You can save my brother,” she said, taking a dainty sip from the porcelain cup.

Sokka furrowed his brow. “You have a brother?”

Azula’s eyes glinted strangely, like something did not quite add up. “Of course I have a brother, what are you on about? I have a brother and he is in grave danger and I cannot save him.”

Sokka laughed a little, confused. “And I can? I don’t know who your brother is, much less how to save him. I can use a sword but I have not for some time and would not hedge my bets on being anyone’s savior.”

Azula gave an aggravated growl. “I don’t know who else to place my bets on. There _is_ no one else. Everyone in this forsaken place has stopped caring about my brother, has forgotten he even existed, but I have not and I _will_ not, and I will not stand by more than I have to while our father draws out his life only to inflict more suffering, and I _quite_ especially will not stand by when he is here because of you!”

“Because of me?” Sokka asked, looking at her in disbelief. He had heard some wild things about Azula (and particularly Azula’s mind); perhaps more rumors were true than he had thought. “No one is here because of me except for me.”

Azula leaned forward, intense and near-frantic with the need for him to understand. “He was _fine_ when he was away, I made sure of it all that I could, but you have brought him here, delivered him right into our father’s arms, because he _loves you_.” She sneered the words derisively, and Sokka did not understand even more than he previously had not understood.

“Who loves me?” he asked, brows furrowed.

“My brother,” Azula growled out. _“Zuko."_

“Your brother, Zuko,” said Sokka.

“My God,” he heard her say as he fainted, “you’re more of a fool than I thought.”

Sokka came to in the morning, and it was now one day before the wedding. He only just stopped himself from fainting once more when he remembered why he had fainted in the first place. But there was no more time for fainting. He had to save Zuko. Somehow.

Panic began to bubble up in……as he pulled on his trousers, and rose to a simmer as he put on his tunic. He was tugging on his boots as it began to truly boil, when Azula entered his chambers, not bothering to knock. “Oh, good,” she said. “You’re awake. I had been questioning your constitution.”

Sokka stood quickly enough to stumble, his hair in disarray, tunic untied, and boots half-laced. “I don’t know where he is!” Azula hiss-hushed him, glancing meaningfully between Sokka and the door. He nodded quickly and began to tie his laces, speaking much more quietly. “I don’t know where Zuko is, or how to get there, or if he’s okay, or what to do, or what to expect, or—”

Azula pinched the bridge of her nose. “Stop,” she said. “I’ll show you where he is and how to get there, and I can suggest what to do, and I can suppose what to expect, but of course he is not okay.”

Sokka had obviously not expected that. As soon as he heard Zuko’s name the day before, hope had soared at the thought of their happy reunion. If Zuko wasn’t okay, would their reunion be happy at all? “Why would he not be okay?”

Azula looked at him like he was one of the world’s twenty stupidest idiots, which perhaps he was at that moment, but she softened almost imperceptibly. “You really don’t know.” She sat on the edge of Sokka’s bed with no respect paid to propriety. They had bonded over the love of her brother, after all; they had to be beyond such silly rules. Well, she thought that maybe they had bonded. She didn’t do much bonding, so she had little experience to go on. “He’s not okay because he’s been held captive by my father, who hates him more than he hates Ba Sing Se and poor peasants and peace all combined. Zuko is good, you know, and my father is not. Neither am I, for that matter, but that is beside the point.” It was beside the point, and it also may be beside the point to point out that while she was not necessarily _good;_ , Azula was not necessarily evil, not even close. Questionable, sure; controversial, maybe; but bad? Not at all. “Zuko is very not okay, and I know this because my father told me as much. He believes any love I had for Zuko was rooted out with his banishment, and my father is _never_ wrong, but he was wrong about that. I love Zuko, and I hate him, and I do _not_ want him to die.”

Sokka almost spoke but something in Azula’s face caused him pause. She was gazing at the floor, her smooth face conflicted and worried and emotive in a way that was so clearly not common. “I don’t want him to die,” she reinforced quietly. “He left me but I don’t want him to _die_.”

“He left me, too,” Sokka said after a moment. Azula glanced up at him and looked so very young, though he knew she was nearing twenty. “And then I left him. Let’s go get Zuko and make him okay and then leave leaving behind.”

Azula considered him for a long moment. “Grab a weapon. Let’s go.” With Sokka’s broadsword sheathed at his waist and Zuko’s dual dao strapped to his back, the unlikely pair set off to save a man they both considered perfect.

As it turned out, they did not need to worry about inspiring suspicion. Though they were quite an odd couple, heavily-equipped and clearly destination-bound, it just so happened that they began their trek to the Boiling Rock just as King Azulon died. It appeared that everyone from the lowliest castle rat to the highest, richest lord became very distracted by the death of a king. Sokka and Azula looked at each other in brief disbelief at the news, then sprinted towards Azula’s captive brother, Sokka’s imprisoned love.

It was around this time that Aang and Toph found themselves locked away in the Caldera jail for public nuisancery, running a dice grift, and robbery all at the same time. Toph slumped grumpily against the wall of the cell while Aang stood on the thin wooden bench to look out the tiny window. The street was loud and bustling, and Aang very much wished they were out there instead of in here. He found it strange, however, that the general ruckus seemed to stop for a brief moment before picking up again, louder and bustlier.

Toph blamed him for getting them arrested and had been resolutely silent for the past thirty-five minutes, but her keen ear heard as much as Aang saw and curiosity got the best of her. “What’s going on?”

“I dunno,” Aang said, standing on his tiptoes to try to see more. 

The cells around them seemed to get louder and bustlier, as well. They heard guards talking loudly and prisoners talking louder and finally, booming loudest over the din of it all, “King Azulon is dead. Long live Prince Ozai.” 

Silence swept through the building before a cacophony erupted, mostly cheers of joy, some boos, some hisses, as well as two or three blubbery sobs. Aang sprang away from the tiny window to lean against the cell bars, trying to see the action. He saw nothing important, minus a few men dressed in the King’s army reds, one with the decorations of both a well-fought General and a well-moneyed Lord. The Lord passed them by without notice, but pointed into other cells where the burliest men were let free in exchange for joining a brute squad that would offer additional protection at the rapidly-approaching nuptials. Though Toph was one of the strongest people and Aang was a master swordsman, they were not nearly bulky and intimidating enough to be chosen.

It was no matter to Aang, who watched in passive entertainment as the world spun wild around them. It was no matter at all until the Lord turned before he left, making sure the brutes were all accounted for, and Aang saw Gyatso’s necklace around his neck.

Aang gripped the bars with white knuckles, face going pasty white as he watched the man who killed his people walk out the door. “We have to get out of here,” he spat.

Toph did not know that he had seen Gyatso’s necklace, but she did know that this was the first useful thing Aang had said in thirty-seven minutes. She stood and cracked her knuckles, elbowing Aang out of the way and grabbing the bars, and _pushed_ to the side, thick metal bending like moldable clay. Small as they were, they were able to slip through her initial gap easily, the hubbub masking their unlikely escape.

As soon as they made a few streets without any sign of pursuit, Aang stopped, grabbing Toph’s arm. “That guy had the necklace.”

“Gyatso’s?” Aang never particularly forgot why he loved Toph so dearly, but the understanding and urgency in his friend’s voice reminded him very much.

“I have to follow him, Toph,” Aang felt choked with emotion. He didn’t see him anymore, the man having left with his squad of brutes in tow, but he had fancy general’s clothes plus fancy Lord’s garb so he had a hunch, a very strong hunch, that they needed to go to the castle. “We need to go to the castle.”

“Then let’s go to the castle,” Toph started to drag Aang along, somehow in the right direction. “How do we get _in_ the castle, though?”

“Well—” That gave Aang pause. “I don’t know. I’m quick and you’re strong but I’m not sure that we’re quite clever enough to do it even put together. _But_ ,” he said.

“But?” Toph prompted.

“ _But,_ you know who would be?” Aang asked, and Toph knew exactly what he was thinking. “The man in black.”

“The man in pursuit,” Toph agreed. “I suppose he would have come here, right? I’ve heard talk of the wedding which means he likely failed and Ozai likely got him but it’s not likely he would have just given up. He’s either living or dead, but I don’t know how we can find him either way.”

It was at that moment that a scream echoed loudly across Caldera, over the castle walls, the royal grounds, through the quarters of Lords and merchants and the poor alike. It was a horrid sound, guttural and inhuman, like the unfortunate creature’s world was being ripped apart and its body wrecked and its mind anguished and it could do nothing, nothing, nothing but break. Aang looked at Toph, and Toph looked at nothing, but did seem greatly disturbed. For such an inhuman sound, the sound of human suffering was all too familiar in their line of work.

“I suppose we’ve found him,” she said.

“You think that’s him?” Aang asked, though he already knew she was right.

“Who else has cause for such suffering?” Toph said, and the happy bustling of people preparing for a five-hundredth anniversary, a wedding, and a newly upcoming coronation seemed to grow a bit louder, pointedly.

Aang very much wished no one had such cause, but as it was, they set off towards the yell as it faded away. He had a feeling that they would hear it again before long.

Back in the castle, Ozai smiled pleasantly to himself. It was evident that Lord Zhao’s incredible invention had been a success. A machine that tortured better than any man could torture in ways that no other torture could replicate. Ozai continued to smile as he continued his work. Zhao was providing him with the most wonderful wedding gift. A wretched son, soon to be dead in the most horrible way. Yes, it was going to be a lovely night.

In the palace gardens, amongst the perfect roses in perfect bushes against perfect hedges, the most perfectly miserable man shook with fear. Just one moment before, he had already been shaking in potent sorrow as he thought of Zuko’s lack of response and lack of love and his own quickly-approaching death. Then the scream began and he could not help but shake in quite a different manner. He was a brave man, truly, but no brave man could remain brave when he faced that horrible sound. That poor creature, Sokka thought, hurting as much in its body as Sokka did in his heart.

Down in the Boiling Rock, Zhao felt nothing but pride. As soon as he had gathered the brutes from the jail and skeevy fighters from the thieves’ quarter and left them in the hand of the royal chief of security, he had eagerly returned to his chamber. He had been working on something in his spare time that he was quite fond of; a machine that ran on hydroelectrics and renewable energy (the environment was important to Zhao. It was no fun to destroy if it was already ruined) that would drain the life out of any living thing. The Drill, as he called it, was only months away from completion, and there was no better gift for his honored soon-to-be King nor was there a better example to present along with it. Zuko’s capture had come at such a convenient time.

The Drill had been tested on animals, of course, of varying size and strength, and it had worked like a charm every time; though it took some tinkering to figure out how to keep them alive past the first few notches before he hoped to test it on such an _important_ subject. It wouldn’t have been very satisfying if he died after just one round. The pathetic boy was sobbing pitifully, and it was a very rewarding sound. He had held out well, too proud to break (‘too strong,’ Zhao deliberately did not think) no matter what tried-and-true methods were implemented, or what clever improvisations were created. The Drill was a brand new monster, however, and Zuko stood no chance of holding out when put under its power.

There was nothing quite like the sound of successful torture. Considering that he had only administered the lowest setting, he believed Ozai would be rather impressed the higher he went. There were twenty levels of pain; Zhao hoped he would live at least through twelve, but doubted he would go past fifteen. Zhao was a very good mechanist.

He left Zuko sobbing and broken to lie alone in the dark, and went to make sure Ozai’s plans were going as ordered. One of the primary initiatives in place was heightened security. Ozai had loudly claimed that it was for dear Sokka’s protection, not wanting him killed or kidnapped (as well as not wanting him to try to run or kill himself _before_ the wedding). It was important that everyone, Lords and Ladies, servants and subjects, believed that Ozai loved his betrothed. If they believed he loved Sokka so fiercely, they would react just as fiercely when Sokka was brutally murdered by their neighboring enemy nation of Ba Sing Se. Fierce enough, of course, to inspire a war.

Comparatively, the _way_ he would murder Sokka was not quite as important, but his consort had been so annoying since he had been recovered from Fong’s failure and his son’s possession, so Ozai was still planning how best to carry out the deed. Suffocation and cutting his throat (beheading, perhaps?) were on the short list, but he was leaning towards taking Sokka down to the Boiling Rock to see Ozai’s dear, dear son take his final breath. He had no doubt that Sokka would drop dead in misery, and though it may not bring the same satisfaction that getting his hands dirty would, it would be a joy to watch. _But_ , that would mean keeping the banished prince alive until then, and he sorely wanted to see him die tonight.

Zhao saw that the brutes were behaving, the castle guards were standing tall, the guardsmen were patrolling the yards, and the hunting dogs were prepared to attack on command. Zhao did not see the princess and prince consort sneaking through the shadows, watching the brutes and guards and Zhao wearily, going steadily towards the hidden entrance to the cellars to the dungeons to the Boiling Rock.

Zhao also did not see the swordsman and strongwoman come through the smallest gap in security, slipping along the border, avoiding the brutes and guards and Zhao with ease, going steadily the direction they hoped that a cellar? a dungeon? a toture chamber? that held the man in black would be.

Zhao also did not see the sneaking figures in the shadows and slinking figures along the border bump into each other, raise their weapons (or fists) to fight, before lowering them in confusion and coming to the very quick decision to work together towards the same goal. The determined quartet sneaked and slinked, the sharp young woman who was even sharperly dressed in front, leading them to her brother, Sokka’s beloved, Aang and Toph’s former-enemy-future-friend, all of them hoping against hope that the horrible scream they heard echo practically across the nation was not Prince Zuko’s last.

They reached a thicket of trees that hid the entrance; Azula pressed a knot in one and a camouflaged door swung open on the trunk of another, revealing a dark staircase in the hollow, leading down, down, down. Down, down, down they went, into the cellar, through the dungeons, and to a solemn, solitary sentry, standing blind, deaf, and mute in front of a heavy metal door. Sokka and Aang paused, Sokka catching Toph before she walked into him. Azula stepped up to the sentry, knocked out a pattern on his chest (a different pattern than Ozai had knocked, though none but Azula knew this), reached into her pocket, and placed a bundle of cloth-wrapped cream buns into his hand. The sentry stepped aside.

Azula shrugged when she turned and saw her compatriots’ confused looks. “My father taught me to hate kindness, but it occasionally works just as well as fear.” She glanced into the chamber and saw an unconscious figure strapped to a table - her _brother,_ she knew, though she had not seen him since he was a young thirteen and she was a younger eleven - but she did not go in, instead gesturing with a sweeping arm for the others to do so.

With a guiding hand on her arm, Aang and Toph rushed in, but Sokka hesitated. It was partly out of fear of what he would see, but it was also out of concern for the strange woman they’d be leaving behind. “You’re not coming? We’ve come this far.”

“And you will go farther,” said Azula, standing straight to suppress her worry. “I love my brother, and I hate my brother, but I love my father and I hate my father and above all I am loyal to my father. I’ve broken as much loyalty as I can, and I can do no more.” She stepped closer, meeting him toe to toe, eye to eye, aiming to confirm as much as to intimidate. “You _will_ save Zuko.”

Sokka nodded. “I will.”

With that, Azula departed, and Sokka descended.

What Sokka saw was Zuko, beautiful, broken, being unbound by Aang’s quick fingers, checked over with Toph’s confident hands. He saw Zuko come closer and closer, though Sokka was the one actually moving. He saw Zuko’s eyes, delirious then confused then clear then so utterly relieved that they were both brought to tears. He saw himself press a hard, chaste kiss against Zuko’s lips, and saw Aang take one side and himself take another, helping Zuko rise on unsteady legs, leading him from the chamber, through the dungeons, to the cellar, and up to the surface where Zuko breathed fresh air for the first time in two months, twenty-nine days, thirteen hours, and fifty-three minutes.

What Sokka did not see was Zhao deciding to take a break, walking away from the fuss of people rushing to prepare for the five-hundredth-anniversary-plus-royal-wedding-plus-coronation-ceremony. It was tiring work, after all, though Zhao spent most of his time loudly ordering everyone around. There was nothing like a fresh round of torture to really refresh the mind and renew vigor for the day. And so: Zhao went happily to the cellars, through the dungeons, down to the deepest chamber, and found it empty.

Nor did Sokka see Azula walking confidently back to the castle as if nothing had happened, like she had not betrayed her father, not helped her almost-step-father on his way to be her almost-brother-in-law, not done something unexpected and unprecedented and extremely unwelcome to all she had ever known. He did not see Azula grabbed on her way to her rooms, did not see her roughly jostled and bound and thrown into an unused room in an unused tower that was unused by anyone who could hear her if she tried to yell for help, which, safe to say, she was much too proud to do. He did not see Azula’s bright angry eyes that masked her fear, and did not see Zhao’s snide grin as he stood before her, and did not hear him say, “Now, Princess. And here I thought you were a clever little brat.” Sokka did not see the hard kick Azula landed on Zhao’s groin, though he really would have liked to, and did not see the bruising retaliatory slap to her cheek. He did not hear the loud slam of the door as Zhao left, and did not see Azula, alone.

Aang tried to not rush too much as they escorted Zuko from the Boiling Rock to safety, but it was an incredibly hard task. He was so close to the man who murdered his adoptive father, murdered everyone he had ever known; they were separated by just a few walls that he just needed the man in black to help him through. On Zuko’s other side, Sokka supported his weight with care, and Aang politely ignored the muttered sweet nothings and sweeter everythings as best as he could. His best was quite good, as he had more pressing things on his mind: what he would say to the man when he finally killed him. His name was Lord Zhao, he learned - he didn’t need to ask, touchingly. Zuko had remembered Aang’s story, remembered Gyatso’s necklace, and remembered to tell Aang that the man he had hunted for nearly all his life was finally found.

Once they reached a clearing that was far enough from the unsuspecting guards who did not yet know to look for them, Aang turned to Zuko and began to say, “We need to get into the castle so we can find Lord Zhao, who killed my father, so that I may kill him in return,” but he said only the beginning, “Wuh,” before Zuko passed out, falling bodily onto the ground.

Aang, Toph, and Sokka gaped at each other for a moment that was much shorter than it seemed, then they gaped at Zuko for a moment much longer than it seemed, then they leapt into action. 

Sokka kneeled by Zuko, holding his face in his hands. “Zuko! Please, my love, do not die now,” and other similar frantic pleas.

Aang knelt on Zuko’s other side, taking first one wrist in hand, finding no pulse, then the other, finding no pulse again, before pressing fingers to a spot on his neck where he felt one, then two, then three slow beats. “He’s alive. Toph?”

Toph lifted him easily, hoisting his limp body over her shoulders. “Where do we go?”

“Away,” said Aang, and away they went.

As we know, the wind is a terrible romantic. Wind’s distant cousin (fifth, thrice-removed) was even more so. Said cousin, fate, was more often a Romantic-with-a-capital-R, but in the case of the most true, most deep, most destined love, romantic-with-a-lower-case-r took precedence. Accompanied by cousin wind blowing a guiding breeze, cousin fate gave them a push towards the same hut that Zuko had stumbled upon before when he was thirteen, freshly burned and banished (fate had nudged him there then, as well, and fate did love parallelism). 

The hut had a different occupant than the one Zuko had met those ten years ago, however: a folk healer, a medicine man with strong beliefs in nature and history and stories passed down generation through generation. To passersby, the hut was ramshackle shed, almost overtaken by moss and vines and the wild garden surrounding it, but to the trained eye, the vines could be made into potent medicines, the moss made into cures, the garden into magic, and the healer inside was Zuko’s best chance of survival.

Fate was a romantic and Romantic for romance, but was also romantic and Romantic when it came to family matters. Fate had become tired of writing Zuko as a Romantic hero (with all too much alienation and melancholy and self-critical regret), and decided that writing Zuko as a romantic hero (one that was due a little impracticality and fantasy and overwhelming joys of life) might be a bit more entertaining. It would not do to thrust Zuko into romantic from Romantic, though, so fate allowed the two to meet in the middle: the healer glanced out his window, glanced once more, rushed out to meet them as he cried out loudly in melancholic joy, “ _Nephew!_ ”

Old as he was, the healer removed Zuko from Toph’s shoulders with ease, quickly carrying him into the hut and leaving the door open so that his companions could follow. Sokka closed the door behind them, watching quietly as the healer laid Zuko on a soft bed. ‘Nephew?’ he kept thinking, but he supposed that made as much sense as anything that had happened the past couple of days. 

It made just as much sense as the shocked and familiar _“Sokka?”_ that came from behind him. 

Katara dropped her basket of mushrooms and threw her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly. Sokka did not have to think about hugging her back, squeezing his eyes shut and being so specifically relieved that her hair smelled the same. _“Katara,”_ he said, kissing her temple. “What are you doing here?”

“Working,” she said, not letting go. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Zuko,” Sokka said, and she seemed to realize that the old healer was bent over a patient, grabbing dried herbs and jars of liquid and what seemed to be an egg and grinding them together methodically with mortar and pestle.

“Zuko’s not dead?” Katara asked incredulously, brows raised.

“He nearly is,” the healer said, quiet and grim. “My nephew has suffered much, and it is a miracle that he still breathes. He will need another miracle to bring him to life, and I do not know if it is a miracle I can perform.”

“But you have to try,” Aang demanded, though it was really a plea.

Toph nodded quickly. “He’s a good guy, I think. He should live more than other people.”

“Please,” whispered Sokka.

After a moment of quiet assessment, he gestured to Katara and she rushed to his side, listening to his muttered instructions and following without question - though her eyebrows twitched oddly when he asked her to bring a frog from the root cellar. Iroh, once a General, still a Prince, now a very odd but very talented master healer that Katara apprenticed under, and if asked for a dormant frog he likely had a somewhat-sound reason. 

Before meeting Iroh, Katara had achieved quite a mastery with more regulated cures, but folk healing was a wonderful historic profession and she intended to master it, as well. She had not come to Caldera’s capital city with this in mind, however, and found her love for folk healing purely by chance. Sokka was in Caldera’s capital city, although she had not seen him in several years nor heard from him in several months, and she found herself loath to leave him alone any longer. She came to Caldera to be reunited with him, hoping the castle needed a healer - but she was turned away. King Azulon’s failing health meant there were plenty of healers, the best of the best, and they needed no more. 

She had caught some sickness of her own while wandering Caldera, minor but uncomfortable, and was not able to pay the much-too-high prices that most healers demanded for mediocre cures. Iroh had found Katara sniffling miserably in the street, brought her a cup of hot tea and an herb mixture that cleared her sickness clean away, and took her under his wing with great enthusiasm. So—if Iroh wanted a frog, she would bring him a frog.

They watched the healer work in silence for quite some time. He prodded Zuko here and pinched there and added herbs and salts and liquids that bubbled without fire to the mortar, made a horrid looking paste, mud brown with a tinge of sick green, and slathered the oozing slime over the frozen frog. Zuko’s chest had been rising and falling much slower than paint dried, but Sokka watched that minute sign of life and _hoped_ intensely. It was when his breaths slowed even more that Sokka gripped Katara’s hand harder (he hadn’t even noticed her hold his hand in the first place), and she cleared her throat.

“Iroh?” she said softly. 

Healer Iroh opened Zuko’s mouth with care and rested the paste-covered frog on his tongue. Iroh knelt by Zuko’s bedside and still could not take his eyes off his nephew, found after all these years just to face the possibility of losing him again. “If anything can help him, it is this.” He watched as Zuko’s chest continued to rise and fall, still slow, but _still_ was the important part at this point. He sighed heavily and looked at Zuko’s escorts.

“I am glad to have my nephew in my care,” he said with a bonfire voice, like a grander version of Zuko’s own. “But I do not understand why you have brought him to me.”

“Why?” asked Aang. “I need his help to get revenge.”

“Why?” asked Toph. “He was fair and he fought well.”

“Why?” Sokka asked. “Because I love him.”

Iroh knew who Sokka was, of course. It seemed that all of Caldera had laid eyes on the perfect man that his brother had claimed as his betrothed. Sokka had been touted like a pleasant prize, something to become distantly attached to, someone to fight for. Something passed between Sokka’s blue and Iroh’s amber as they watched each other, both drained.

“And now?” Katara asked quietly, squeezing Sokka’s shoulder.

“And now,” said Iroh, “we wait.”

And now, they waited. As they did, their stories began to unfold; they at first sounded like they were reading from books for children still learning to sound out their words, but as the hours went on, they evolved to poetic novels acted out by the most talented playwrights.

Aang spoke of his youth with the nomadic people who had found him abandoned as an infant (Iroh kindly did not point out that Aang, just eighteen, was still very much a youth in his eyes). He laughed as he recalled games he created with his friends who were as good as siblings, smiled as he remembered the meals they made and their misfortunes experimenting with unknown spices they found as they wandered. He cried as he spoke of his adoptive father’s goodness and how much he missed him. He was numb as he told them about Zhao, then a General, and his men attacking the nomads ruthlessly without reason. His voice was hollow as he described seeing men and women alike cut down where they stood, and the faces of his friends that were forever frozen in abject horror; they had to strain to hear him speak of his father Gyatso, who had died protecting Aang, keeping him from Zhao’s sight, how warm his blood felt as it trickled down Aang’s head and how sickening it was to hear his lifeless body thunk to the ground as escaped from under him.

Toph spoke of her own youth (again, Iroh said nothing, leaving these children to have their presumptions of adulthood) as a child of some high-class merchants that treated her like a porcelain doll, kept her powdered and pampered in silks and jewels that they told her were so lovely even though she could not see them. They ignored her for the most part and the servants and guards did the same. She was left to wander familiar rooms over and over and over, kept from other children and animals and new places and everything else. When she discovered she was _strong_ (she had stubbed her toe on a heavy chest of drawers that someone had moved without telling her so, and she, tiny and blind and seven, picked it up and threw it through a window, taking out the panes and quite a bit of wall), she embraced it and began to dream of a life beyond her parents’ home, but they had locked her in a near-empty room, muttered something about having a freakish nature and to ‘please clean it up before you show your face again,’ and she then she told them about _leaving_ because how could she give up the one thing she felt gave her life at all?

Aang and Toph spoke of finding Fong and therefore finding each other; Aang gained another sibling to help heal the pain of those he had lost, and Toph had gained one of her own to help her be her own person for once in her life.

Katara and Sokka spoke of their lives in the Southern Bend. They talked about their mother Kya, who had given them both their beauty, Katara her brains, and Sokka her heart. Katara spoke of her long battle with illness that bore no cure and how it was her death that led her to healing because the healer they called to help her was able to relieve some of her pain, to keep her company, to guide them all through their worst moments. Sokka spoke of their father Hakoda, who continues to be the strongest person he had ever met (“Emotionally, Toph, don’t worry.”) and the funniest and most hard-working and how Sokka had envied Katara for how much her father appreciated her cleverness that so aligned with his own, though it was softened by Hakoda’s proud smiles when he told Sokka that he was beautiful like his mother but with his father’s mind and he was terribly sorry about that. Katara began to speak about a farm boy who they had meshed into their own family when her eyes fell on Zuko’s still slowly breathing but _still_ breathing body and her voice trailed off.

Sokka’s gaze had never left his beloved’s body, but he did not seem ready to speak on it, so Iroh shared his own story of his youth (his _genuine_ youth, as he was not young and he was in fact quite old), growing up in the castle under a demanding father with a brother who hurt for pleasure. He spoke of the thirty-third most beautiful women in the world, a tailor’s daughter he had met in the village who had the most beautiful laugh and most beautiful smile and most beautiful freckles that kissed her shoulders. He told them how he and this woman made the most perfect child, a son who was a blessing and a miracle and his parents’ absolute joy. He smiled sadly as he spoke of his wife’s death, and gave Katara a grandfatherly look when he said that he had taken to studying medicines when he was not with his darling son who had still been the tender age of six when his mother had passed. He smiled so much sadder as he spoke of his son’s death; the honorable death of a soldier in a war that Iroh now believed was ultimately fought for the rich to get richer and the poor to die. Sometimes though, the rich died, too, and that is what happened to Lu Ten. After his death, he had abandoned his role as General, ignored his title of Prince, and dedicated himself to doing anything, anything to give him some amount of absconsion from his sins. He glanced at Zuko as he said this, and told them that he had been so focused on saving himself that he didn’t realize others needed saving more, but he looked at them with resolution when he said that was not his story to tell.

Sokka spoke abruptly, unable to stop himself. He told them quietly of the farm boy that he fell in love with at first sight, how the light fell on him bent over carrots just _so_ that Sokka knew he would never look at anyone else the way he looked at him. He told them about drinking coffee in the early morning chill, side by side on the doorstep; trying to convince Zuko to grow his hair long (this was said with warm amusement as Sokka looked at Zuko’s lovely hair that now fell below his shoulders); sharing ripe peach-plums under a shady tree in the heat of summer and fresh spice cake beside the fire of Zuko’s little hovel in the dead of winter; telling Zuko to _return to him_ as he left, and how Zuko said, as he always said, ‘As you wish’.

It was at these words, “As you wish,” that Zuko awoke with a groan.

Sokka was by his side in a split second, kneeling over him and peppering his face with kisses, tears beginning to fall from his cheeks onto Zuko’s own. Iroh did not pull Sokka off entirely, but he did pull just enough to have access to his patient; Katara leaned over Iroh’s shoulder, Aang by his side, and Toph still in her chair (she yelled “Oh, cool, he’s awake,” to make herself feel more included). Zuko’s eyes were unfocused and a little hazy, but they were open and gold and _alive._

“Why is there a frog in my mouth?” Zuko started to ask, but there was a frog in his mouth, so he managed just “Wuh.” The frog was now sucked clean of Iroh’s oozy paste, warmth-woken from dormancy, and it hopped from Zuko’s mouth with a ribbit, up to the windowsill and out to the garden to live a long, happy frog life.

Sokka, for he loved Zuko enough to look past there having just been a frog in his mouth, kissed him, and Zuko, grateful that he was loved enough for it to be looked past, kissed him back.

It was very obvious that they had forgotten their audience; Iroh cleared his throat before they (firstly) progressed to an even more unchaste reunion and (secondly) risked injuring his still very nearly dead patient. They did not look away from each other for another moment, but Zuko’s eyes widened when he caught sight of Iroh.

“Uncle,” he whispered, a question.

“Zuko,” Iroh replied, an apology.

“Uncle—” he exclaimed, and Iroh could not help but to shove Sokka away so he could embrace his long-lost nephew. “I thought you were dead,” Zuko whispered against his shoulder.

Iroh closed his eyes and rested his chin atop Zuko’s head. “I was worse than dead, my nephew. I was a coward, and a stupid one at that. There are a lot of things to say, but I don’t know that I have the words just yet.” Zuko held tightly onto his tunic as Iroh smoothed his hair. “I want so badly for you to stay, but,” he glanced at Sokka, “I worry that my brother will not be far. I can write to some friends, call in some favors, find safe passage away from here—”

“We can’t Zhao! Here has father’s necklace, or, to get to him strange own quite possible,” yelled Aang and Zuko. Rather, Aang said, “We can’t leave! Zhao is here, I can’t get to him on my own,” at the same time that Zuko said, “It was Zhao, Aang, he has your father’s necklace, or, I think so, because it’s very strange and it seems quite possible,” but they understood each other well enough.

Aang stared at Zuko, who was quite obviously weak and quite obviously weary and quite likely unable to fight. “I—” he paused, soul balancing revenge and consideration for the villain-to-friend who could lead him to fulfilling his life purpose. “I can wait. I know who he is, so—so I can wait, and I can kill him later.”

“Aang,” Zuko furrowed his unscarred brow, but Aang was all the more convinced of consideration over revenge when Zuko tried to sit up and fell back onto the pillow after only a few seconds of trying. “This is important. This is what you’ve _worked_ towards, I can get you to him.”

Toph snorted from behind them all, still seated at the kitchen table. “You can’t get anyone anywhere, dummy. You can’t even stand.”

“If I try harder—” Zuko strained, wincing in pain but trying to push through.

Iroh put a hand on his chest to halt his attempt. “I am afraid the young lady is right. You cannot go anywhere right now, nephew.”

“Maybe,” said Sokka thoughtfully, “Azula could help.”

“What?” blurted Zuko.

“What?” blurted Iroh.

“She helped me get to you, maybe she still has a little rebellion in her.”

 _“What?”_ blurted Zuko.

 _“What?”_ blurted Iroh.

“What?” asked Sokka, furrowing his brow.

Zuko shook fiercely as he did so, but he managed to sit up with the help of Iroh’s hand on his back and Sokka’s arm around his shoulders. “My father is going to kill her. I have to save my sister.”

“He—what?” said Katara, looking a little lost. “That’s insane. She’s his daughter, he wouldn’t murder her.”

Iroh looked at her grimly, and Zuko shrugged and gestured weakly at his scar. “He gave me this for speaking against him. Azula’s always been his favorite, sure, but I was impertinent and was burned and cast out. Azula _betrayed_ him, and he will do much worse.” It seemed that everyone in the room was focused fully on his scar, and Zuko sorely missed the mask he donned as the Blue Spirit. At least it served now as living proof of his father’s willingness to hurt his own.

Hesitantly, Aang asked, “If we’re already going to the castle—”

Zuko snorted. “We’ll find Zhao.”

And so they departed: Sokka supporting Zuko, Aang and Toph walking slightly ahead to act as lookouts. Towards the castle they had just escaped from, towards Zuko’s sister, towards Sokka’s cruel betrothed, towards Aang’s fuel behind his fight, towards Toph’s something to do.

Though they were not witness to it, Ozai confirmed Zuko and Iroh’s fears. He stood in front of his once-loved daughter (well, as loved as Ozai could manage, which was not much), looking down at her with heartless curiosity. “Azula.”

“Father.” She tried desperately to keep the fear from her face, but Ozai had taught her to maintain that cold mask and he could see right through it. She was quite a pathetic sight at that moment, bound and thrown to the floor as she was. She had maneuvered to lean casually against the wall, but Ozai saw it for what it was: a cowed dog with its tail tucked between its legs, hoping to avoid a kick. No matter. Ozai had very good aim.

“My dear,” he said, condescendingly concerned, “I admit that I am shocked at your disloyalty. You’ve always been such a faithful daughter, I’m quite disappointed.”

Though Ozai made a valiant effort to never be shocked at anything, and avoided disappointment by culling it at its very first rustle, he _was_ shocked now, and endlessly disappointed. So unlike her mother and so like himself, she was clever and ruthless and was the perfect heir to continue Sozin’s legacy - or, he supposed, she had been until Zhao informed him of her treachery a few hours ago. (Ozai, to be clear, did not know the extent of Azula’s betrayal. He thought his dear consort was locked in his chambers, unbeknownst of his impending murder. He thought his darling son was near death, escaped or not, and he looked forward to finding his body and desecrating it so terribly he would feel it in the afterlife. He thought his sweet daughter would take to his lessons much better than his son, and she would be quickly, painfully reformed. He was, on all accounts, quite wrong.)

Ozai allowed silence to fill the room, waiting for Azula to break and beg for forgiveness. He supposed he was proud that she didn’t. She merely stared at him, watching for the smallest movements that might hint at her future. He remained still; he did so love to surprise.

Quietly, carefully, slowly, Aang, Toph, Sokka and Zuko crept through the woods and along the heavily guarded palace grounds. It was a combination of wind, fate, luck and skill that allowed them to make it to the heavy wooden doors near the back of the castle, so unknown by the public and infrequently used by castle staff that there was just a sole guard stationed in front of it, the key hidden on a ring latched securely to his belt. To his credit, the sentry didn’t flinch when he found himself with the sharp tip of Aang’s broadsword at his throat.

“Give me the key,” Aang said. For such a lithe and happy boy, he was able to sound intimidating, and he did so here.

“I have no key,” said the sentry, standing straight. He did not want to die, so he added, “I swear on my infant daughter’s life that I have no key.”

Zuko thought this was an awful thing to swear on. “You’ll still swear on your infant daughter's life if our friend here tears your arms off?”

Toph stepped forward quickly and gripped his forearms in a way that indicated this was not an empty threat.

“Oh,” said the guard, unhooking the ring from his belt. “You mean this key?”

Toph snatched the key and handed it off to Sokka once she realized it would take her a while to figure out where to even insert it. Sokka thanked her and slammed the butt of his sword onto the guard’s head, unlocking the door as Aang caught him and leaned him gently against the castle wall. In they went, creeping through the thin servants hallway with Zuko at the lead. He remembered the servants’ passageways hidden behind the walls just as well as, if not better than, the main castle layout. He had a lot to hide from as a child, and found the servants’ averted gaze and silent company much safer than the imposing figures of his father and grandfather and their loyal staff that felt able to take a more hands-on approach to the prince’s education.

They wound through the long halls, ducked into corridors and through doors, sticking to the shadows, casting furtive glances over their shoulders and peering down passages as they searched for Princess Azula. They had to duck quickly behind a tapestry as a one of Sokka’s personal attendees rushed by: a heavy-skirted woman who was meant to prepare Sokka for his wedding and who had just, horrifyingly, discovered he was not in his locked chambers at all, and perhaps had never been there in the first place. Well, rather, a servant who went to stoke the fire discovered it, who then told a servant who told a cook who told a horse groom who told his girlfriend who told the lady she served who happened to be a lady who was assigned to serve Sokka who did not fully understand that _not_ telling anyone was an act of self-preservation.

She did have enough self-preservation to know to not run directly to Prince Ozai, and was instead relieved to find Lord Zhao. Zhao groaned when he heard the news and told the woman that she was fired (she paid this little mind. She had been fired thrice before but had a forgettable enough face that it never stuck). He had _just_ led Prince Ozai to his daughter and he hated to break up the fun he must be having, but needs must, so he turned back and went the way he came.

That was when Aang saw Zhao.

He sprinted away from his companions without warning, drawing his sword as he began his pursuit. Zhao had been in a position of possible assassination for many years, and when he heard rushing steps behind him, he knew to run to a more defensible place before assessing the danger. He slid into a banquet room and slammed the door, jamming it shut. Aang slammed into the door but, small as he was, it did not budge. He jiggled the handle, but again, to no avail. 

“Toph!” he called desperately. Toph gave Sokka’s hip a pat before running towards the sound of Aang’s voice, rapping on the door once to feel its composition, then slamming her shoulder against it, knocking it clear off the hinges in one fell shove. Aang squeezed her arm in thanks and leapt over the door, running through the banquet room and the hall beyond and catching glimpses of Zhao through doorways and reflected in windows. At last, he seemed to close in on him, and he prepared his sword for the initial blow.

As we know, Aang is a master swordsman. He is quick and agile and clever and was born with talent in his very marrow, and he was fueled with reason and revenge which made his mastery all the more deadly. Master or not, however, Aang was _fair_. He fought a fair fight, accepted surrenders with grace, was not too proud to lose (he was just too good to), and all in all acted nobly. That is why when a nobleman failed to do so, Aang was caught entirely off guard. 

He had rehearsed what he would say when he found his personal demon for years; when thoughts of his father’s death kept him awake at night, it was reminding himself of the plan that allowed him to sleep. The plan was simple: find the man, and kill him. He dreamed of what techniques he would use when he took him down, imagined every step and every slice and every word that would come out of his mouth. He did not have many words he wanted to say, at any rate, only these: “Hello, my name is Aang of the nomads. You killed my people. Prepare to die.”

He began to say this, the words he had rehearsed so very well, but what came out was “Hello, my name is Aang of th—” and then Zhao’s dagger sunk into his side with the bite of a hyena-gator.. Aang looked from Zhao’s nasty grin to the wound in his torso as it started to bleed. Zhao twisted the dagger as he jerked it out, leaving Aang to slump to the floor in shock as he wiped the blade on his trousers.

“I have things to do, you cur,” Zhao said, “And they don’t involve dealing with _you.”_

Aang felt small and pitiful and in some small way betrayed. He had lived life to find this man; would he cut it so short so quickly? “Do you know who I am?”

Zhao snorted. “Don’t think so highly of yourself. A nuisance with a sword. Well, you will be no one soon enough.”

Aang’s world began to get darker, losing one-tenth of a shade per three beats of his heart. It was unfair, really, that Zuko could go through so much and live, but one twist of a knife and Aang was done for. He didn’t begrudge Zuko for it. He hoped he lived well. In his heart and in his experience, Aang knew he had fight left in him. He could push through the pain and pick up his sword and cut down the man who had destroyed his life. But he sat against the wall, clutching his side to stop from bleeding out too quickly in front of the man who had taken everything for him, and he if he tried to stand, he was sure the weight of it all would push him right back to the ground.

Perhaps he would have stayed down, had he not looked up and saw his father’s necklace; an heirloom that had become a trophy for a cruel man who loved the kill more than the hunt. It was this sight that forced him up, forced him to pick up his sword, forced him to grip it in his right hand while holding his wound desperately with his left, and to point it at Zhao’s neck. He had been cocky, perhaps reasonably so, and had not expected Aang to try to get up, much less manage it, and he paid for it now.

“Hello, my name is Aang of the nomads,” Aang stated, labored and angry. “You killed my people. Prepare to die.”

Zhao did not hide his surprise well, but he quickly parried Aang away with the blade of his dagger. Aang stepped closer, raising his sword again.

“Hello, my name is Aang of the nomads. You killed my people. Prepare to die,” he repeated, pressing on. A quick attack on Aang’s part, another parry on Zhao’s. It went on like that for some tense rounds: an unflourishing attack, a desperate counter. “Hello, my name is Aang of the nomads,” he repeated, louder. “You killed my people. Prepare to die.” Attack, parry. “Hello, my name is Aang of the nomads,” Zhao drew his dagger up in a fierce arc, hoping to land a critical hit. He missed. Aang attacked, Zhao parried. “You killed my people,” he had Zhao walking backwards towards the wall and Zhao realized this trap, tried to beat Aang away with another slash but batted away easily. Attack, parry. “Prepare to die.”

Their movements grew more desperate, Aang for revenge and Zhao for survival. Attack, parry, attack. There was a terrible glow behind Aang’s grey eyes, and it caused the decorated Lord to feel fight-or-flight struggle within him. “Hello,” Aang began again, fierce and advancing. Zhao took a step back and shook his head. “My name is Aang of the nomads,” another step, another attack, another parry. “You killed my people,” another step, attack, parry. “Prepare to die.”

“Stop!” demanded Zhao, though it sounded much more like a beg. “I don’t even know your people!”  
That was the wrong thing to say. Aang’s blade slashed through the air, slicing a thin cut along Zhao’s cheekbone. “You killed my people.”

Zhao held his hands up in a silent plea. “They were no different to me than other people I’ve killed. It was nothing personal!”

Aang’s eyes flashed dangerously and Zhao took another step back. “It is personal _to me_.” Aang sliced Zhao’s other cheek. Aang did not want to toy with him, but he did want him to feel pain.

“Stop, please, I’ll give you anything—”

“Anything?” asked Aang.

“Anything,” Zhao confirmed.

“Offer me money.”

“Everything!” Zhao said.

“Power, too. Promise me that.”

“All my power and more, of course.”

“Anything?”

“Anything!” cried Zhao.

Aang plunged his sword clean through Zhao’s shoulder and screamed, _“I want my father!”_

Zhao stumbled back with a yell as Aang pulled his sword free, the man now pinned against the wall. Aang panted as he stared at him, sword raised above his head to deliver the killing blow. Years of pain and searching and revenge were right at his fingertips, and _yet_.

“Hello,” Aang whispered. Still glaring, still dangerous. “My name is Aang of the nomads. You killed my people. I will not kill you, but I will make sure you never hurt anyone again.”

Zhao did not have time to question him before Aang slammed the hilt of his sword into Zhao’s skull. In silence, Aang tied him securely to the sturdy post of a table, threw his weapons out the open window, and unclasped Gyatso’s necklace, putting it safely into his pocket. He checked Zhao’s ties once more, then twice, and left him alone without a second glance. Vengeance somewhat done with, Aang was already beginning to feel the space in his chest where it had lived for so long begin to cave in. Helping his friends might keep it from aching so much, he believed, so he raced off to find them once more.

With Zhao disposed of, there was no one to alert Prince Ozai to his fiance’s disappearance, nor of the quad of intruders en route to an unused room in an unused tower that was unused by anyone except, it seemed, for the past thirty some hours, primarily by Azula and for Azula-related activities.

Now, we know that the wind is a romantic, as is its fifth cousin thrice-removed, but fortune is also quite a fan. Azula was one of fortune’s treasured children; she was a force to be reckoned with, and put the strengths fortune had given to her to great use. Fortune had birthed her with talent, and she nurtured those talents until they bloomed hundred-fold. Fortune had blessed her with riches, and the princess sought to increase them through means other than (though including) war. Fortune had beseeched her to save the brother that fortune had neglected as a child, as fortune had grown rather fond of the story that its dear friends wind and fate watched so closely. Azula had obliged, quite boldly, and fortune, as we know, favors the bold. Her bravery was not to be overlooked, so fortune gave Aang a bit of a nudge to the left so he was reunited with the others and gave them all a nudge to the right so they turned down the correct hallway and saw a flickering light coming from under a heavy door.

Zuko _knew_ what had to be behind it, and fortune nudged him from behind with a rush of adrenaline, allowing him to surge forward without Sokka’s aid, shoving the door open with a roar of _“Get away from her!”_

Prince Ozai stood over a trembling Azula, a lit torch held almost against her cheek. Had Zuko arrived half a second later, the siblings would have had matching scars. Ozai whipped around, surprised. Zuko stood at the door, and for a moment he looked almost like a stone dragon: rooted to the stone, immovable, teeth bared and hackles risen, dignified and fiery and protective and electric. If he had breathed fire, it would have barely been a surprise.

A moment too late for it to be convincing, Ozai laughed. His attention was drawn away from Azula and he put the torch back into its holder on the wall. “My, would you look at this. A family reunion.”

Zuko glared. Behind him appeared Toph, grinning toothily, Aang, armed dangerously, and Sokka, glaring with the weight of two years of his own suffering plus the many years of everyone else’s behind his eyes. Without a word passing between them or their eyes leaving Ozai, Sokka removed Zuko’s dual dao from their place on his back and put them carefully into Zuko’s hand. Deftly, Zuko parted them and ran their sharp edges against each other, the metal hissing dangerously.

“Get away from her,” Zuko repeated.

Ozai laughed again, much more convincingly than the last. “A strong demand from a weak child. You’ve grown quite stubborn, Zuko.”

“You’ve grown quite stupid, _Father.”_ said Zuko, gritting his teeth. “I’m going to tell you something once, and whether you live or die is up to you. Stand down, let Azula go, and you will live. If you choose to fight, well—I have been busy these ten years, father, as I believe you are aware. I am skilled with the dao, and with my hands besides, and I have sailed the seas as a more honored King than you will ever be. You have grown complacent waiting for the throne and if you choose to fight, you will _not_ win.”

“I expect to breathe a while more,” said Ozai. “You’re bluffing. You’ve been a prisoner for months, and I know _exactly_ what you have experienced in the Boiling Rock. You and I both know it’s a miracle you’re still standing, and you will not be standing much longer.” 

Before fortune had faded back to spectate with wind and fate, it had given Zuko a final nudge. Through this nudge of understanding, he knew that his father was indeed correct, and he would not be standing much longer. Adrenaline was coursing through his system, fueling his fight. Iroh had performed a miracle that would keep Zuko alive, but _alive_ required recovery, not simply adrenaline. He needed sleep and rest and food and water and Sokka’s arms around him to keep nightmares at bay. Fortune had informed him in no uncertain terms that he had approximately four minutes and fifty-two seconds until he passed out and became quite useless for the remainder of this whole ordeal. Fortune had given Zuko this nudge one minute and nineteen seconds ago, and the three minutes and thirty-three seconds he had remaining were ticking away.

“That is possibly true,” said Zuko, “but consider: it is possibly false. I could be bluffing, but I could be able to strike you down where you stand.”

Ozai hummed and tapped his nails on the sword at his waist, clinking against the jeweled hilt. He was never unarmed; Zuko had no doubt that he kept a weapon at hand even as he slept. “I’ll call your bluff. To the death.”

“No,” said Zuko. “To the pain.”

Ozai’s eyes narrowed at him. Though Azula was still bound and shaking against the wall behind Ozai, Aang and Sokka were armed behind Zuko, and Toph had her arms crossed but ready to punch as soon as someone aimed her, it was as if Ozai and Zuko, father and son, dark and light, were the only ones in sight. “To the pain.”

His curiosity was clear, but it was obvious that he refused to ask. Zuko, with three minutes and twenty-one seconds remaining, decided to indulge him. “To the pain. If you win, I die. If I win, you live.”

Ozai sneered cruelly. _“Weak,_ even when you try to be a brave little soldier. Unable to kill.”

“I am able to kill, Father, though I do not like to. I have done so before. But I am unwilling to kill _you_. If you win, as I said, deliver the killing blow - no doubt after you deliver hundreds of non-killing blows, as I know you quite well. If I win, you live, but on my terms.”

Ozai snorted. It wasn’t quite dignified, but he was of the belief everyone in the room would die within the next twenty minutes, so he did not mind so much. “Your terms, boy?”

Three minutes and two seconds. “My terms. The first thing you lose will be your feet. Left, then right, below the ankle. You should be able to move around in six months, once your legs heal enough to stand it. Then your hands, at the wrist. This is more cruel, as you cannot do much without your hands, but your arms will heal somewhat quicker than your legs. Four months, give or take. Then your nose, to remove some of the pleasure you take from life, then your tongue, cut deeply away, then your left eye—”

“Yes, yes, yes, then my right eye, then my ears, then whatever else, are you ready to die, boy?”

“Wrong!” yelled Zuko. Two minutes and thirty-one seconds remained; he began to speak faster, louder. “Your ears you can keep. You will hear every shriek of every infant that lays eyes upon you, struck by fear at your horrible presence, not for the evil air you carry so well, but for the hideous figure that you will be; every woman that gasps, every child that screams out of fear, their cries will echo in your head. ‘To the pain’ means that I will allow you to live, but in anguish, in humiliation, in misery until you can stand it no more. You are a weaker man than me, Father, though it may have taken us both quite a while to arrive at this point, and you forced that misery on me, you forced every kind soul to reject me, every child to shriek and every head to turn away so they did not have to look at me any longer, or worse, heads to turn _towards_ me to witness what injury you struck, but I survived. I am stronger than you, and I survived, but you will _not,_ and that is what ‘to the pain’ means to me. To survive no matter how much you wish you did not.”

“You’re a fool, child, to think me so weak.”

“I am no fool,” growled Zuko. “And I believe you know this. You fear it. You tried to destroy me through my whole life. You _tried_ and you _failed_. For so long, all I wanted was for you to love me, to accept me. You, my father, who banished me for talking out of turn, who left a child to die. I stand before you stronger, and that terrifies you. What kind of King will you be, Father, when you could not put out the very fires you started. I have said it, you will not survive what I have, and you will not find the kindness I have, and you will live in absolute misery, _alone,_ as I have not.” Thirty-two seconds. _“Drop your sword.”_

Ozai’s sword clattered to the ground. Ozai looked down at it as if someone had dropped it for him, but there was his hand, grip loosened so the blade may drop.

Fortune was not always correct. Twenty-nine seconds before Zuko’s allotted adrenaline was supposed to run out, his eyes rolled back and he fell bodily into Sokka’s arms.

Prince Ozai saw this, and dived for his sword. Zuko’s eyes flew open once more, golden and fiery, and he yelled, “Now you will suffer, to the pain—”

Ozai’s sword fell to the ground for the second time. Toph took it upon herself to deliver a punch to Ozai’s gut, tackling him once he involuntarily bent to hold his stomach.

“Tie him up,” Zuko muttered, holding on to Sokka. Aang handed Toph some dusty rope that had been conveniently forgotten in the corner, and she hog-monkey-tied him in the most undignified and uncomfortable manner possible. Aang set to work on slicing Azula’s own bindings with Ozai’s sword. It was oddly quiet in the room; Ozai had been humiliated with little effort, Azula’s moral center had been upturned and the love of her father erased, Sokka was unable to do much else but hold Zuko and refuse to ever let him go, and Zuko was quickly growing bleary-eyed and weary-boned.

Toph tightened the rope around Ozai’s wrists ruthlessly, and stepped on the small of his back in spite as she stood once more. “Now what?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Now,” Zuko said, feeling a bit dizzy. “We leave him and lock the door and—I—I don’t know.”

Aang blinked at him. “You don’t know?”

“Well—I don’t know. I keep getting caught by surprise. I didn’t expect to live after I was banished, or after I was captured by the Blue Spirit, or after I was put in the Boiling Rock, or after I came back to life just now—”

“Wait,” interrupted Toph, “you came back to life just now?”

“I hope I’m back to life. Otherwise this is a very realistic and perplexing dream.”

“Did you die for sure?” asked Aang. “I suppose your eyes did roll back into your head and everything.”

“Well,” conceded Zuko. “I thought that I was dying again, so when I closed my eyes I prayed to the Lord of Permanent Affection to live. Clearly, the answer came in the affirmative.”

“Do you suppose there is such a Lord?” asked Azula. Though she had been greatly shaken over the past few hours, she sounded as steady and confident as she always had.

Zuko shrugged a little, then held onto Sokka a little tighter as if even that was a little too exhausting to handle at the moment. “If one didn’t exist, I suppose I wouldn’t be alive. If one didn’t exist, I don’t suppose I would much want to be alive, either.”

Sokka glanced at Ozai as he began some sneering remark that would never be heard. “Let’s go,” he interrupted. “Somewhere that’s not here, please.”

Toph helped Azula stand and did not say anything when she paused in the doorway looking back at Ozai, the last to leave. Azula felt less shaken than she should have, really, but it still chipped at her spirit to see Ozai bound and broken on the floor, resolutely not looking at her, hatred glinting in his piercing eyes. Somehow, even defeated as he was, he managed to make it seem like she was miles below him, just as he always had.

She thought that the blind girl wouldn’t say anything about the way her lip wobbled briefly even if she could see it, and she appreciated the thought. She turned, and they followed their line of companions, Aang bouncing in front, Sokka following with a loving arm around Zuko’s waist, Toph biting her nails and acting like the past few days hadn’t been the most exhilarating she had ever had, and Azula found herself among a group of oddfellows that felt so strangely like friends.

They locked the room and left, leaving Ozai, alone.

What followed was quite boring to anyone but the driest Caldorian historians. Though he retained the title of prince throughout his banishment, Zuko rejected the crown, instead convincing Iroh to become crowned as King. Though Iroh and (incredibly) Azula argued that he should at least be named crown prince, he took several long hours to scribble out a list of the various crimes and sins he committed as the Blue Spirit—even they could admit that it was a _very long list_ and their citizens may be hard pressed to readily dismiss it. Iroh had been a beloved prince during his adolescence, and that love was quickly reignited after his first meeting with the general populace. That love may have had an underlying current of exasperation after he caught sight of his favorite tea merchant and had then talked directly to him for twelve minutes during an assembly of over one thousand citizens, but, well. He was a King with peculiar charm.

It took Zuko several weeks to heal, and he and Sokka spent it entirely together; on luxurious beds, in Sokka’s favorite library, in Zuko’s childhood hideaways, in the stables where they had their first real argument ( _“What the fuck did you name Druk?” “What the fuck did you just call Horse?”_ ). They had quite a lot of time to make up for, and they intended to use every second they had making use of the luxuries that they both hated. They had a plan that did not involve any of them. 

Aang and Toph stuck around, for lack of any life direction to pursue. Aang in particular felt quite at a loss. His hunt for Zhao had fueled his every waking moment for six long years, and now Zhao was locked securely in a dank prison where he would not be eligible for parole for ninety-three years. Ozai was locked in the same prison several floors away, as well, and they ensured that they both had a suit of guards who blamed them personally for some hurt or another.

They had all been indulging in one of Zuko and Azula’s forbidden childhood dreams when Aang brought it up his concerns, perched on the top tier the ornate fountain in front of the castle, legs dangling over the side. “I don’t know what to live for now. Well—I want to live, certainly, I’ve found quite a lot to live for. But _how_ do I live for it?”

Zuko looked at him consideringly from the large pool at the base of the fountain where he was floating on his back. “Have you considered piracy?”

And, well. If Aang was going to be a pirate, there was no way in hell Toph wasn’t. She splashed him for thinking he could ever get rid of her as he laughed and insisted he never would. Katara had become fond of both Aang and Toph immediately, and Sokka made a face at the way she looked at Aang, looking back at his perfect floating man instead.

Sokka kicked at Zuko lightly, smiling when he looked. They hadn’t actually spoken about their plans, after this. They didn’t need to.

Once Zuko was healed enough to travel, they took off—Zuko on Druk, Sokka on a new steed he called Horse II, and Toph, Aang, and Katara on heavy-weight, spirited, and reliable horses respectively. They arrived at Hakoda’s farm just over a week later, right as he had finished milking the cows. Zuko, a trusty farmhand til the end, darted forward and caught the buckets before more than a couple of drops could spill.

“You know,” Hakoda said that night, after hours and hours of hours of introductions and catchings up and yes-Zuko-is-alive and yes-Zuko-is-a-prince and yes-Zuko-is-the-Blue-Spirit-I’m-still-trying-to-wrap-my-head-around-that-one-myself. “I used to be a sailor.”

At the end of it all, this is a story about the _Honor_. A beautiful black ship that had been stitched together with the love of wind and fate and fortune. She had been rather bored, as of late, and felt that a few new additions to the crew would spice things up well enough.

Sokka stood by Zuko at the helm, watching the sunset and knowing he would never, never get used to how beautiful it was to be at sea standing next to his true love with their family all around them. “I suppose we’re doomed, then.”

Zuko’s lips twitched into a small smile and he put his arm around Sokka’s waist. “Doomed?”

Sokka looked around—at Aang in the crow’s nest holding on to a nervous but laughing Katara, Toph wrestling the _Honor_ ’s quartermaster Suki with a number of dreaded pirates cheering them on, Hakoda showing the sailing master Bato a clever trick to sturdy the pulleys—and hummed in affirmation. “To be together.”

Zuko grinned and leaned his head on Sokka’s shoulder. “How dreadful. Is this a fate you’d like?”

“Dreadfully,” replied Sokka, putting his arm around Zuko’s waist and pulling him closer, resting his cheek on his hair. “Live it with me?”

Zuko kissed him, and whispered against his lips, “As you wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thats that on that! like i said, i'll inevitably post some fluffy one shots in the coming weeksish so sub to the series if you wanna. thanks for sticking around you absolute beauties <3

**Author's Note:**

> zuko is banished at 13, starts working for hakoda at 15, meets sokka at 16, leaves the farm at 18, "dies" at 19, and is currently 23. sokka met zuko at 16, agreed to marry ozai at 21, and is also currently 23.
> 
> toph and aang joined fong when they were 15, and they're both currently 18. katara is 20.


End file.
